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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Thursday August 9, 2012.
The Israeli municipality of Jerusalem orders the destruction of emergency housing while Israeli settlers and soldiers continue to terrorize citizens in the West Bank; these stories and more, coming up, stay tuned.
Israeli Mayor of occupied Jerusalem, Nir Bakat, approved the demolition of two structures built by the United Nations (UN) as temporary emergency shelter for Palestinian families after Israel demolished their homes. Maxwell Gaylard, a UN official, defended his agencies’ actions as emergency humanitarian assistance provided when the Palestinian families turned to the UN for help. Gaylard echoed the concerns of other human rights groups in the area and noted that Palestinians in East Jerusalem apply for housing permits but do not receive them. He added, “Where else could we put [the shelters]? We are helping the Palestinians on land that is theirs. Beit Hanina is occupied Palestinian territory.”
In the Jenin area today, Israeli occupation forces raided the village of Yamoun which led to confrontations with local Palestinians. Six military vehicles raided the village and as they reached the center of town, dozens of Palestinians who had been gathering in the area confronted the soldiers. Palestinians threw stones at the soldiers and Israeli forces responded by shooting their guns and firing sound bombs. The confrontation lasted for almost an hour. No injuries or arrests were reported.
In related news, a Palestinian woman was wounded after she was attacked by Israeli settlers and the Israeli military conducted raids in other areas around Hebron on Thursday. A group of Israeli settlers from Kyriat Arba settlement south of Hebron in the southern West Bank attacked a 28 woman in the head with stones. She was taken to a local hospital.
Also near Hebron, two Israeli military patrols raided villages in the surrounding area at dawn, terrorizing residents in the west in Ethna village and in the north in Beit Ummar. No arrests were reported.
And finally, Israel released Palestinian hunger striker Bilal Diab from Jenin today. Diab has not eaten for 78 days to protest his administrative detention in Israeli military prison. He was most recently arrested in 2010 and has been held without charge since that time under the Israeli military’s administrative detention policy. This policy has been widely condemned by the international community as a violation of international law and human rights. Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners began a hunger strike earlier this year to protest this policy.
And that’s all for today from IMEMC News; this was the Thursday August 9th daily news round-up from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. For more news and updates please visit our website at www.imemc.org. Today’s report has been brought to you by Husam Qassis and me, Kelly Joiner.
