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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Wednesday May 21st, 2014.
Israeli troops invade areas in Gaza and injure one civilian, and in the West Bank destroy farmers’ homes in the Jordan valley. These stories, and more, coming up, stay tuned.
The Israeli army shot and injured a young Palestinian man in the head, on Wednesday morning, in the neighborhood of al-Farain, to the east of Khan Younis city, southern Gaza Strip. The victim has been identified as one Saleh al-Fara, age 20, according to media sources.
Al-Fara sustained moderate wounds in the head and was then transferred to the military clinic in the city, medical sources say. Meanwhile, Israeli military vehicles fired smoke bombs at Palestinian farmlands, burning the wheat crops belonging to a Palestinian citizen, Al Ray further reports.
Civil defense crews rushed to the area, managing to extinguish the fire and preventing the burning of nearby crops.
Staying in the Gaza Strip, Israeli navy vessels attacked Palestinian fishing boats in Gaza waters, close to the shore in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, and kidnapped two fishermen.
Eyewitnesses have reported that the navy fired rounds of live ammunition at boats while fishing within the six allocated nautical miles, and took the two men to an unknown destination.
The Israeli navy frequently attacks Palestinian fishing boats in Palestinian waters, and even while docked at the Gaza shore. The attacks lead to property damage, in addition to dozens of casualties and arrests.
Elsewhere, Israeli soldiers demolished 20 barracks in Jiftlik village in the Jordan valley, on Wednesday morning. As a result of the military’s actions, 25 Palestinian families have been left homeless.
In the aftermath of the Six-Day War, in 1967, over 800 homes in al-Jiftlik were razed by the Israeli army and its 6,000 inhabitants were ordered to leave. Since then, most of al-Jiftlik’s inhabitants returned to the village. Following the 1993 Oslo Accords between the Israel and the PLO, the village was designated as part of Area C, putting it under full Israeli military and civil administration.
Eelier on Wednesday, Three Palestinians were kidnapped by Israeli forces from the Jenin district, northern West Bank, in addition to two others from the Jerusalem area, according to reports by local and security sources.
And that’s all for today from the IMEMC News; this was the Wednesday May 21st, 2014 news round-up from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. For more news and updates please visit our websiteatwww.imemc.org. Today’s report has been brought to you by George Rishmawi and me Ghassan Bannoura.
