On Monday evening, Israeli forces invaded the town of al-Isawiya in East Jerusalem, severely beating one young Palestinian and injuring another with a sound grenade canister.
According to the local Palestinian news agency WAFA, Israeli forces assaulted a teen identified as Ahmed Abu Roumi, beating him with rifles at a ‘pop-up checkpoint’ they had erected in the town.
Clashes erupted nearby, and Israeli soldiers began attacking Palestinian youth, who threw stones at the invading soldiers.
One young Palestinian, Salem Musa Darwish suffered from burns when he was hit by a sound grenade fired by Israeli soldiers.
The two young men were taken to the hospital for treatment.
Al-Issawiya has been the site of frequent Israeli invasions and clashes, as well as home demolitions of Palestinian homes. It is an area of East Jerusalem that Israeli authorities have designated for takeover by the Israeli state, and the forced removal of the Palestinian residents.
According to a recent report in the Israeli Ha’aretz newspaper, “Israeli police officers in the East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood of Isawiyah were caught on camera complaining that there was no purpose to an ongoing police operation in the neighborhood, highly criticized by community leaders, other than deliberately provoking the residents.
“The video footage, which was seen by an Israeli court during a hearing on charges pressed against a resident for throwing stones, shows one policeman telling his colleague: ‘It’s really provoking them for nothing. Why do this on purpose?’
“During the entire course of the summer, the Jerusalem District Police carried out daily wide-scale raids in Isawiyah, entering the East Jerusalem neighborhood in the afternoon on patrol, setting up roadblocks and stopping motorists and passersby for inspection and then going back in at night to arrest residents.
“More than 350 residents of Isawiyah have been arrested, including 11 in the early morning on Sunday, but charges were pressed only against about ten of them. Residents have claimed that the raids have been aimed at provoking them and that the police are seeking to spark violence. The residents also claim that there has been no stone throwing in the neighborhood before or during the raids other than at police forces that have entered Isawiyah.”
