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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Monday, August 17th, 2015.
Israeli soldiers kill a Palestinian man at a military checkpoint in northern West Bank and demolish homes near Jerusalem. These stories, and more, coming up, stay tuned.
Israeli soldiers, on Monday, shot dead a Palestinian at Za’tara military checkpoint to the south of Nablus, according to the Red Cross.
According media reports troops shot 26-year-old Mohammed Bassam al-Atrash for allegedly attempting to stab an Israeli soldier. Israeli forces reportedly denied medical teams access to him, leaving him to bleed to death, the Red Crescent reported.
Al-Atrash is from the Jenin town of Kufr Ra’i. He is the second Palestinian to be killed by Israeli troops in the same area.
Late Saturday Israeli forces shot and killed 16-year-old Rafik al-Taj at Huwwara’s main street to the south of Nablus, for also allegedly attempting to stab an Israeli soldier.
Palestinian human rights groups say that five Palestinians were killed since the start of August. Three of them were killed at checkpoints of the Israeli military.
According to the Middle East Monitor “At least 23 Palestinians have been killed and another 2,156 detained by the Israeli military since January 1, 2015.
Also on Monday, a Palestinian man was injured when soldiers attacked him in Beit Jala town, in southern West Bank. Walid Shat-lah, sustained light wounds, when soldiers attacked him as he tried to stop army bulldozers from destroying his land.
Army bulldozers started on Monday morning to destroy residents lands to the north of the town to make way for the Israeli wall.
In related news, Israeli bulldozers, Monday morning demolished structures belonging to more than 20 families of the Jahalin Bedouin community in eastern Jerusalem, locals said.
Israeli border police reportedly escorted the bulldozers into the Khan al-Ahmar area of eastern Jerusalem where they carried out the demolitions.
Khan al-Ahmar lies in the E1 corridor — a large tract of land between East Jerusalem and the illegal Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim that Israel has earmarked for annexation.
Israeli settlement construction in E1 would divide the West Bank in two and make the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state — as envisaged by the internationally backed two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict — virtually impossible.
And that’s all for today from the IMEMC News; this was the Monday, August 17th, 2015 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 George Rishmawi and Ghassan Bannoura.
