Welcome to this Week in Palestine, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for September 16, to the 22, 2017.
President Abbas warns world leaders of lost chances of peace this week, meanwhile Israeli attacks continue against Palestinian communities. 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. Three protesters were injured on Friday when Israeli troops attacked anti-wall and settlements protests organized in West Bank villages. IMEMC’s Majd Batjali with the details:
Protests were organized this week at the villages of Bil’in and Ni’lin in central West Bank. Anti-wall and settlements protests were also organized in the northern West Bank village of Kufer Qadum.
Three villagers were injured by rubber-coated steel bullets and scores others were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation in Kufer Qadum, when Israeli troops attacked the weekly protest. Later troops stormed the village and fired tear gas at residents’ homes causing damage. Soldiers also abducted an Israeli supporter during the nonviolent protest.
At the villages of Bil’in, and Ni’lin, residents and their supporters reached the Israeli wall. Soldiers stationed their showered them with tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. Many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation.
For IMEMC News this is Majd Batjali
The Political Report
This week, Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, delivers an important speech at the United Nations, as chances of peace collapses. IMEMC’s Rami Al Meghari has more:
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas addressed world nations this week, in a UN speech, aimed at reviving a stalled peace process.
Abbas appeared to be concerned about lost chances of peace between Israelis and Palestinians, pointing at a series of previous peace initiatives and proposals by world countries, including Arab states.
The president criticized Israeli measures on the ground, including settlements growth on occupied West Bank. He maintained that such Israeli measures are hindering creation of a Palestinian state on the 1967 border lines.
For the first time-ever, the 82-year-old President, referred to the UN’s partition of plan of 1947, opening a discussion over a one-state solution. Also, he pointed out boycott of Israeli goods, produced at Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Concurrently, media reports suggested this week that Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Palestinian Authority and the United States, will likely hold a joint peace conference, either in Egypt or in Washington
In other news, Jordan reaffirmed its patronage of the Islamic shrines in the occupied East Jerusalem.
In the meantime, Fatah party of Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas and the Islamist Hamas party in Gaza, agreed to reconciliation and holding elections, afterwards.
For IMEMC, I am Rami Al Meghari in Gaza
The West Bank and Gaza report
A Palestinian fighter was killed in Gaza this week, as Israeli troops demolish homes and businesses in the west Bank. IMEMC’s Ghassan Bannoura Reports:
Palestinian medical sources have reported, on Tuesday, that a Palestinian fighter was killed in a border tunnel, between Gaza and Egypt, in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, has confirmed that the Palestinian, identified as Hani Shallouf, 24, was one of its members.
It added that Shallouf was from the Shaboura neighborhood, in Rafah, and that he was working in one of the tunnels when he was accidentally killed.
Earlier on September, two Qassam fighters were also killed, in two separate incidents, when border tunnels collapsed on them.
Staying in Gaza, Israeli navy ships attacked, on Monday morning, several fishing boats, in Palestinian territorial waters in the Sudaniyya area, northwest of Gaza city, abducted two fishermen, and confiscated their boat. The navy abducted the two fishermen, and took them along with their boat to Ashdod Port, near Gaza, local sources reported.
Elsewhere, Israeli soldiers invaded, on Monday morning, the village of al-Za’im, in occupied East Jerusalem, and demolished a Palestinian residential building. The soldiers surrounded the village before many army jeeps, and military bulldozers, invaded it, and demolished the building, owned by Mohammad Awad Sa’iri. The Israeli army claims that the building was constructed without obtaining a permit from Jerusalem City Council.
Later in the week, the army invaded Beit Hanina neighborhood, north of Jerusalem, on Tuesday, and demolished a carwash facility, under the pretext of being built without a permit.
on Wednesday, Israeli forces uprooted dozens of fruit trees and leveled Palestinian land west of West Bank city of Nablus to make way for a new settlers road in northern West Bank.
During the week, Israeli forces conducted at least 72 military invasions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and in Jerusalem. During these invasions troops detained more than 48 Palestinian civilians, including 8 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 16, to the 22, 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.
