This Week in Palestine, December 23rd, 2016

Two Palestinian teenagers are reported killed by Israeli gunfire this week in the meantime Israel keeps attempting to keep occupied territories under its control. These stories, and more, coming up, stay tuned.


The Nonviolence Report

Let’s begin our weekly report as usual with the nonviolent activities organized in the West Bank. Many civilians were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation as Israeli troops attacked anti wall protests organized at a number of west Bank villages. IMEMC’s Majd Batjali with the details:

Many civilians including journalists were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation when Israeli troops attack Santa protest organized at the wall checkpoint separating Bethlehem city of Jerusalem.

Local and international activists dressed as Santa marched up to the checkpoint in the wall demanding free access to holy places in Jerusalem. Troops responded by fireing tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets. Two journalists were moved to Bethlehem hospital for treatment after suffering severe effects of tear gas inhalation.

In Kufer Kadum many residents were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation as Israeli troops attacked the weekly protest there. Troops later stormed the village and fired tear gas into residents’ homes.

Meanwhile in the villages of Bil’in and Ni’lin, in central West Bank, Israeli soldiers attacked the protesters as soon as they reached the gate in the wall that separates local farmers from their lands. Many protesters suffered the effects of tear gas inhalation and were treated by field medics at both locations.

For IMEMC News this is Majd Batajli.


The Political Report

Israel keeps attempting to keep occupied territories under its control and trying to evict Palestinian residents. Meanwhile, Israel may remove an Israeli settlement outpost after nearly 10 years delay. IMEMC’s Tian Chenwei has more:

The Israeli High Court released, late on Tuesday, its decision regarding the eviction of Ghaith-Sub Laban family, in which the court partially accepted the family’s appeal against eviction and suspended the eviction temporarily.

According to the Palestinian News Network, the family rented the house, located in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem, in 1953. They continued to live in the house after 1967, and currently the parents and their two sons, one daughter, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren live in the same house.

The court decision keeps the family’s protected tenant status for 10 more years but without children, after which the family would be evicted and the house would be handed to the Israeli settler organization that requested the eviction.

On the other hand, residents of the illegal Israeli settlement outpost of Amona, in the central occupied West Bank, voted on Sunday to approve a relocation plan put forward by the Israeli government. Israeli government has been delaying the evacuation of Amona since 2006. After two years of unrest, the settlers decided to suspend the argument and accepted current plan. However, compared with previous plans which would have seen only half of them relocated nearby, the current agreement will reportedly see almost all of them staying around the area.

Ma’an News Agency reported that a week earlier, several hundred ultra-religious right-wing Israeli settlers set up camp in Amona, in anticipation of the outpost’s impending evacuation, raising tensions over a potentially violent confrontation between the settlers and Israeli military.

In the meantime, Batan al-Hawa Neighborhood, in the heart of Silwan in East Jerusalem, is the setting for the most extensive expulsion in recent years in East Jerusalem, according to a report by the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. To date, eviction claims have been filed against 81 Palestinian families that have been living in Batan al-Hawa for decades.

International concern about the occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights has mounted following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vow in April that “the Golan Heights will always remain in Israel’s hands.”

U.S. and EU representatives and British Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East and Africa have assured that their respective bodies still do not consider Golan Heights a part of Israel. Al-Marsad: Arab Human Rights Center reports that the foreign ministers of Ireland and the Netherlands also recently condemned Israeli settlement expansion, land confiscation, and oil drilling in the occupied Syrian Golan. Israel occupied the Golan Heights together with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and Sinai in 1967.

For IMEMC, Tian Chenwei reports.


The West Bank and Gaza Report

This week, two Palestinian youth killed by Israeli army gunfire in the West Bank, meanwhile in Gaza Israeli navel and ground forces attacks leave on youth injured. IMEMC’s Ghassan Bannoura reports:

A Palestinian teenager died, on Friday morning, from very serious wounds he suffered in October, after Israeli soldiers shot him in the al-Jalazoun refugee camp, north of Ramallah, in central West Bank. Fares al-Bayed, 16, was shot after dozens of soldiers invaded the refugee camp, and clashed with local youths, who hurled stones at the military vehicles.

The soldiers fired dozens of live rounds, rubber-coated steel bullets, gas bombs and concussion grenades, causing many injuries among the Palestinians. al-Bayed was hit with a live round in the head, and remained in a coma until his was pronounced dead at the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah.

On Thursday, 19 year old Ahmad Kharoubi was shoot dead by Israeli troops on Thursday at the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Kafr Aqab. Kharoubi was shot in the neck with live fire by Israeli troops as they invaded the neighborhood with armored vehicles and wrecking equipment to partially destroy the home of a Palestinian family.

The soldiers had given a deadline of dawn on Thursday to the wife and children of Misbah Abu Sbeih, who was killed by Israeli forces in October after carrying out an attack that resulted in the deaths of one Israeli soldier and one civilian. After killing Kharoubi the soldiers continued their invasion until they destroyed Abu Sbeih house.

During the week, Israeli forces conducted at least 63 military invasions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and in occupied Jerusalem. During these invasions, Israeli troops kidnapped more than 78 Palestinian civilians, including 28 children.

Elsewhere, a Palestinian youth was injured on Friday when Israeli troops opened live gunfire at Palestinian protesters east of Gaza city. The youth was moved to a nearby hospital after sustained moderate wounds, medical sources reported.

Earlier in the week, Israeli forces, on Tuesday morning, opened fire at Palestinian farmers and fishermen during separate incidents, in the north and south of the Gaza Strip, local sources said.

Israeli forces deployed at borderline military outposts east of Maghazi refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip, and east of Khan Younis, south of the Strip, opened fire at farmers who were working on their land, said the sources. Meanwhile Israeli navy forces also opened fire at fishermen sailing off the northern coast of the Strip. No injuries were reported.

For IMEMC news this is Ghassan Bannoura.


Conclusion

And that’s all for today from This Week in Palestine. This was the Weekly report for December 17, to the 23, 2016. From the Occupied Palestinian Territories. For more news and updates please visit our website at www-dot-imemc-dot-org, This week’s report has been brought to you by George Rishmawi and me Eman Abedraboo-Bannoura.