This Week in Palestine, September 15 2017

As Palestinians continue their objections moves against Israeli settlements construction, Israeli attacks leave many civilians injured. 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. Israeli troops attacked anti wall and settlement protests on Friday organized at a number of west Bank villages, as a result many residents were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation. IMEMC’s Majd Batjali with the details:

protests this week were organized in the central West Bank villages of Bil’in, Ni’lin and Al Nabi Saleh in addition to In Kufer Qadum village in northern West Bank

Israeli soldiers attacked protesters in Al Nabi Saleh before even leaving the village. At the nearby villages of Bil’in, and Ni’lin, residents and their supporters reached the Israeli wall.

In Ni’lin village villagers and international and Israeli supporters marked the 35th anniversary of the massacre of Sabra and Shatila. Most narratives agree that on the night of 16 September 1982 Israeli forces led by Ariel Sharon, surrounded the two Palestinian refugee camps in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and facilitated the entry of a local right-wing militia group to the camp and kill around 3000 Palestinians most of whom were women and children.

In Kufer Qadum troops also attacked the villagers and their international supporters at the village entrance. Later troops stormed the village and fired tear gas at protesters.

For IMEMC News this is Majd Batjali


The Political Report

Palestinians object this week to current Israeli settlements building in the occupied Palestinian territories and demand justice, IMEMC’s Rami Al Meghari has more:

Palestinian ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement that current Israeli settlements building on the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, are hindering peace and would lead to more political complications.

The ministry added that silence of the international community towards such activities, would in turn make things more worse and would not help the peace process to resume. It called for actions.

Settlements growth, across occupied Palestinian lands, is considered illegal by international law.

In the meantime, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, has held a series of outside meetings, over chances of resumption of talks in the region and ahead of Abbas’s upcoming speech at the United Nations.

Meanwhile, some media reports that both Fatah party of Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas and the Islamist party of Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip, will likely go into unity, following a 10-year-long political split.

Hamas from Cairo, declared it is ready to dissolve an administrative committee of its own in Gaza and that President Abbas should , in return, end all his punitive measures , against the Gaza Strip.

For IMEMC, I am Rami Al Meghari, in Gaza.


The West Bank and Gaza report

Two Palestinian fighters were killed in Gaza and many others were injured in the west Bank due to army attacks this week. IMEMC’s Ghassan Bannoura reports:

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas announced Thursday evening that two of its fighters were killed in two separate incidents, when border tunnels collapsed on them. Al-Qassam Said the Khalil ad-Dumyati, 32, from Gaza city, was killed when a border tunnel collapsed on him.

It added that another fighter, identified as Yousef ‘Abed, 22, from Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, was killed in a similar accident.

Hundreds of Palestinians, mainly tunnel workers not affiliated with any group, have been killed in siege-busting tunnels in the Gaza Strip, largely after the tunnels collapsed on them.

In April of this year, al-Qassam said that one of its fighters was killed when a tunnel collapsed on him. In February of this year, three civilian tunnel workers were killed when a siege busting tunnel collapsed on them.

Earlier in the week, many Israeli military vehicles invaded, on Tuesday morning, Palestinian agricultural lands, east of the al-Qarara town, northeast of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, and uprooted them while firing live rounds. On Monday, soldiers, stationed on military towers across the border fence in southern Gaza, fired many live rounds at Palestinian farmers, forcing them out of their lands.

Also on Monday, the soldiers abducted a patient, identified as Fadel Abu Hasseera, 27, as he was trying to cross Erez terminal, in northern Gaza, for medical treatment. The Palestinian received a permit from the Israeli authorities, but the soldiers abducted him after her arrived at Erez on his way to a hospital.

In the West Bank this week, Dozens of Israeli soldiers invaded, on Wednesday at dawn, the city of Tubas, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, and clashed with many youngsters, before shooting one, and abducted him along with two others.

On Saturday a Palestinian woman was injured after a number of extremist Israeli colonists hurled stones at her as she was sitting on her balcony, in the Old City of Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank.

During the week, Israeli forces conducted at least 118 military invasions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and in Jerusalem. During these invasions troops detained at least 104 Palestinian civilians, including 15 children.

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 September 9, to the 15, 2017. 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.