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Welcome to this Week in Palestine, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for December 13th, to the 19th 2014.
This week the UN voted on a resolution allowing the Palestinian people to practice the right to self-determination, in the meantime Israeli forces continued their attacks on Palestinian communities killing one civilian this week. 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. On Friday, Israeli soldiers attacked the anti-wall protests organized in West Bank communities using rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas. IMEMC’s Majd Batjali with the details:
This week, protests were organized in the villages of al Nabi Saleh, Bil’in, Nil’in, central West Bank and Al Ma’ssara village in southern west Bank.
At the villages of Bil’in and Ni’lin, residents and their international and Israeli supporters, managed to reach the wall. Soldiers stationed there fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at protesters. Many more at both Bil’in and Ni’lin were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation.
In the nearby village of al Nabi Saleh, Israeli soldiers attacked the villagers and their supporters before leaving the village. Soldiers used tear gas against protesters. Later troops invaded the village and fired tear gas into residents’ homes. Many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation.
Meanwhile Israeli troops attacked the villagers of al Ma’ssara and their supporters at village entrance then forced them back using rifle buts and batons.
For IMEMC News this is Majd Batjali.
The Political Report
At the political level this week, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously voted for a draft resolution, allowing the Palestinian people to practice the right to self-determination. IMEMC’s Rami al Meghari has more:
Palestine’s observer at the UN, Riyad Mansour, hailed the UN’s vote as very necessary step that would help Palestinians get approval of a Palestinian bid to end the Israeli occupation of Gaza within a timetable.
Meanwhile, Arab states league in the UN expressed the hope that the United States will not veto that bid for ending Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
Palestinian Authority had earlier discussed with France a draft proposal to be submitted to the United Nations Security Council. The draft includes ending the occupation until the year 2017.
In the meantime, European Union court dismissed an old verdict that considers the Islamist Hamas organization as terrorist. Yet the ruling kept Hamas’s assets frozen for three months to come.
Hamas welcomed the new verdict as a victory for the Palestinian people.
For IMEMC News, I am Rami Almeghari in Gaza
The West Bank and Gaza Report
This week, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian civilian during invasions targeting West Bank communities, and a Palestinian fighter dies due to accidental explosion in Gaza. IMEMC’s Eman Abedraboo-Bannoura reports:
A young Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers as they invaded, on Tuesday at dawn, the Qalandia refugee camp, in the central West Bank district of Ramallah. Mahmoud Abdullah ‘Adwan, 21 years of age, was seriously wounded to the head.
Troops prevented Palestinian medics from reaching the heavily bleeding Palestinian. The sources added that the medics eventually managed to reach the seriously wounded man, and moved him to the Palestine Medical Center in Ramallah, where he died of his serious injury.
Eyewitnesses said dozens of soldiers invaded the camp, during early dawn hours, to kidnap some Palestinians, an issue that led to clashes with scores of local youth. The soldiers fired dozens of rounds of live ammunition, while local youth hurled stones, empty bottles and several Molotov cocktails at the invading vehicles.
In Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers invaded several Palestinian homes in the Old City and violently assaulted three young Palestinian men, causing various cuts and bruises. The soldiers wanted to occupy the rooftops of the homes of the attacked residents, in order to fire at young Palestinian men, during confrontations between the army and local youth.
Clashes took place overnight and lasted till Wednesday dawn hours in different parts of occupied Jerusalem, as protests continued following the death of Mahmoud ‘Adwan, who was shot and killed by the army in the Qalandia refugee camp, on Tuesday at dawn.
In the Gaza strip this week, The Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), has reported that one of its fighters was killed, Thursday, in what it described as an accidental explosion in a training camp, in southern Gaza.
Earlier in the week, five Israeli military vehicles carried out, on Tuesday morning, a limited invasion into Palestinian lands east of the southern Gaza Strip districts of Rafah and Khan Younis.
Local sources reported that military vehicles came from Karem Abu Salem military base, across the border, and advanced a short distance into the farmlands, while several tanks and armored vehicles were stationed close to the border fence.
For IMEMC News this is Eman Abedraboo-Bannoura.
Conclusion
And that’s all for today from This Week in Palestine. This was the Weekly report for December 13th, to the 19th 2014. From the Occupied Palestinian Territories. For more news and updates please visit our website at www.imemc.org. This week’s report has been brought to you George Rishmawi and me Ghassan Bannoura.
