Audio Link After Text
Welcome to this Week in Palestine, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for August 1st, to the 7th, 2015.
This week ten Palestinians injured as Israeli settlers’ terrorism on the rise meanwhile Palestinians complain to the Arab league. 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 troops attacked anti wall and settlements protests organized in West Bank communities using tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. As a result, scores of protesters were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation. IMEMC’s Majd Batjali has more:
This week anti wall and settlements protests were organized in the central west Bank villages of Bil’in, Ni’lin, and al Nabi Saleh. In addition, protests took place in the villages of Kufer Qadum in northern West Bank and Al Ma’ssara in the south. Israeli soldiers used tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets against the unarmed protesters.
Protesters this week demanded that the killers of the 18 month old baby who died after radical settlers fire bombed his family home in a northern West Bank village last week be brought to justice.
In Bil’in and Ni’lin ,protesters managed to reach the Israeli wall. Meanwhile in al Nabi Saleh village, Israeli troops fired several rounds of rubber-coated steel bullets at the villagers as soon as they reached the village entrance.
in Kufer Kadum village scores of residents and their international supporters were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation as Israeli soldiers attacked the weekly protest. Soldiers also fired tear gas into residents’ homes after invading the village.
Meanwhile at the village of al Ma’ssara, in the southern West Bank ,Israeli troops attacked the villagers and their supporters at village entrance then forced them back using rifle buts and batons, no injuries were reported.
For IMEMC News this Majd Batjali.
The Political Report
Israeli settlers’ terrorism on the rise, Palestinians complain to the Arab league, and the UN Relief and Works Agency is short on funds to start a new school year, the details with IMEMC’s George Rishmawi.
The Palestine Liberation Organization issued this week a special report to be presented to the Arab Foreign Minister’s meeting highlighting Israel’s terror attacks by settlers in the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.
The report explains that Israeli settler attacks target Palestinian individuals, homes, churches, mosques, trees and even poison Palestinian water resources. The report also indicates that settlers are not usually charged by the Israeli authorities for the commission of such crimes.
Although there are more than 11 thousand settler attacks in the past eleven years, the report covers only the period between January – July, 2015, including the burning and killing of one and a half year old Ali Dawabsha this week in the village of Doma near Nablus.
Israeli media sources revealed information about a settler group who are planning to violently topple the current Netanyahu government.
The settler group call them selves, The Revolt. Israeli newspaper Haaretz said about them,
“Members of ‘The Revolt’ meet only at night, move from house to house and know how to maintain an alibi. Their violent tactics make ‘price tag’ attacks look like child’s play.”
Palestinian observers directly accuse the government of Israel of encouraging settlers’ terror by approving funds and new settler units in the occupied West Bank. This week the Israeli government allocated approximately one Million dollars in settlement support, to fulfill the deal between the coalition parties and the settlers council who supported them in the latest parliamentary elections.
In other news, The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, has warned in a report addressed to the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, that unless funding for the full amount of the Agency’s General Fund shortfall of $101 million is secured by the middle of August, the financial crisis may force the suspension of services relating to the Agency’s education program.
This would mean a delay in the school year for half a million students attending some 700 schools and 8 vocational training centers across the Middle East.
The report states “as things currently stand, with stringent austerity and management measures having been put in place, the Agency should just about be able to continue with services that are life-saving, protect the most vulnerable refugees from extreme hardship, and maintain public health and safety until the end of the year.”
The announcement by UNRWA created uproar among Palestinians especially Palestinian refugees whose children depend on UNRWA schools for education. The parents are worried that their children will be in the streets in three weeks, while other kids are sitting their classrooms.
For IMEMC News, this is George Rishmawi
The West Bank and Gaza Report
This week Israeli settlers and army attacks targeting Palestinians left 10 injured civilians in Gaza and the west Bank. IMEMC’s Ghassan Bannoura Reports:
In Gaza this week, five Palestinian civilians were injured on Friday when Israeli air force attacked residential areas in Central Gaza strip. According to medical sources, the five residents were moved to Al Aqsa hospital for treatment and their wounds were descript as moderate.
The Israeli attack comes as a home-made shell algedly fired from Gaza Landed near the border, on the Israeli side, in the Eshkol regional council. no injuries or damage reported
In the West Bank this week, a Palestinian youth was injured on Monday at midday, by Israeli soldiers gunfire who are stationed at the Za’atara checkpoint in the northern West Bank.The teen was standing in line with dozens of other Palestinians when he asked to use the bathroom. The Israeli soldiers claimed that the young man then attempted to run away. Soldiers shot him in the legs, causing moderate injuries.
Also on Monday a Palestinian youth was injured in the southern West Bank city of Hebron when soldiers forced him to drink gasoline after beating him up. After the soldiers let him go, the youth’s father took him to ‘Aalia hospital, in Hebron, where he suffered from severe pains and underwent medical tests.
On Sunday, A Palestinian man, Emad Abu Sharekh, was seriously injured when he was brutally attacked by three Israelis while returning from Fajr prayers at al-Kabeer Mosque, in Lod City.
On Wednesday, Israeli Jewish settlers attacked Palestinian homes with stones located in the outskirts of Silat ad-Daher, some 20 kilometers to the south of Jenin in northern West Bank. The settlers, who also chanted racist slogans against Arabs and Palestinians, provoked a scuffle with angry local Palestinians who forced them out of the area.
On Thursday, Israeli troops shot and wounded a Palestinian driver near Ramallah after the car he was driving ran into two Israelis standing by the road. It’s unclear whether the striking of the Israelis was accidental or on purpose. Some reports of the incident say that the two people who were injured by the vehicle were soldiers, but that has not been confirmed by the army.
According to local sources, the Palestinian man was driving on a main road known as Route 60 in the central part of the West Bank near Ramallah, and was approaching the area near the illegal ‘Shilo’ settlement when his car hit two people.
Also this week, Israeli occupation bulldozers, on Tuesday morning, tore down three homes in Dahmash town, near occupied Ramla, under the pretext of building without a permit. Also on Wednesday Israeli soldiers invaded Khashm ad-Daraj Bedouin community, east of Yatta town, south of the southern West Bank city of Hebron, and demolished a residential shed, and a barn.
Moreover Israeli authorities, Wednesday, demolished seven Palestinian-owned agricultural structures in the village of al-Aqaba, northern Jordan Valley, in addition to serving Hebron area Palestinians demolition notices regarding 20 homes, according to local sources.
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 August 1st, to the 7th, 2015. 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 by Maher Qasiess and me Eman Abedraboo-Bannoura.
