Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Tuesday, February, 21, 2017.
Israeli navy attack Gaza fishermen and abducts five meanwhile in the West Bank troops ransack homes and detain civilians. These stories, and more, coming up, stay tuned.
Israeli navy ships attacked, on Tuesday morning, several Palestinian fishing boats, and opened fire on them, before abducting five fishers from the same family, and confiscated one of their boats. The navy attacked the fishing boats less than four nautical miles from the shore near Gaza city, chased them while firing live rounds and spraying them with high-pressure water cannons.
The fishers were cuffed and blindfolded before the soldiers took them, and one of their boats, to Ashdod port. The attack is part of daily violations against the fishers and their boats in the besieged and improvised Gaza Strip, and are frequently accompanied by limited invasions by the soldiers into Palestinian farmlands close to the border fence.
Elsewhere, Israeli soldiers invaded, on Tuesday at dawn, the town of al-‘Isawiyya, in occupied Jerusalem, violently searched and ransacked homes, and abducted five Palestinians, including three siblings.
The soldiers conducted several invasions into the town, overnight and during dawn hours, Tuesday, and clashed with dozens of youngsters, who hurled stones and empty bottles on them, while the soldiers fired rubber-coated steel bullets and gas bombs. The soldiers also removed a tent that was installed by the locals who were preparing to celebrate the release of detainee Mohammad Zeidan, who is scheduled to be freed Tuesday, after spending fifteen years in Israeli prisons.
Moreover, Several Israeli military vehicles invaded, Tuesday, the al-Khader town, south of West Bank city of Bethlehem, searched homes and abducted a Palestinian and his sister, in addition to summing their sister, and two former political prisoners, for interrogation.
In other news, Elor Azaria, the soldier who shot and killed an unarmed and wounded Palestinian back in March 2016 has been sentenced by an Israeli military court to an 18-month sentence.
21-year old Abdul-Fattah Sharif was killed on March 23rd, along with his friend Ramzi Aziz Qasrawi, 21. The two were killed after allegedly lightly wounding an Israeli soldier with a knife. Sharif was executed by a shot to the head while lying wounded on the ground.
The Palestinian government spokesperson Tarek Rishmawi told Agence France Presse, “The Palestinian government views this light ruling against the murderer soldier as a green light to the Israeli occupation army to continue its crimes.”
And that’s all for today from the IMEMC News; this was the Tuesday, February, 21, 2017, news round-up from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. From more news and updates, please visit our website at www.imemc.org today’s report has been brought to you by George Rishmawi and me Ghassan Bannoura.
