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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Thursday, August 20th, 2015.
Israeli tanks invade parts of Gaza meanwhile a Palestinian political detainee on hunger strike in critical heath conditions. These stories, and more, coming up, stay tuned.
Eyewitnesses from Beit Hanoun city, northern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, said that four Israeli tanks and three bulldozers entered the Strip, opened fire and razed civilian lands. Locals said that the vehicles entered more than 150 meters into the strip, and razed private lands.
In the center of the Strip, Israeli soldiers in military watchtowers opened fire on farmlands.
Israeli tanks and bulldozers often enter the Gaza strip, violating the truce signed last August between Gaza ruling (Hamas) and Israel, following the 51-day Israeli war on Gaza that killed over 2,200 Palestinians.
Elsewhere, Israeli forces accompanied with bulldozers, on Thursday morning, demolished homes and agricultural facilities at the Oyoun area, in the city of Tubas, northern West Bank. There was no demolition order against the houses and no prior notice.
Israeli forces barely waited for the family to leave the rooms that were going to be demolished and physically attacked the family, residents told local media.
In other news, Palestinian hunger striker Muhammad Allan was in a medically induced coma on Thursday, Palestinian Authority officials and doctors said, a day after Israel lifted his administrative detention order due to his medical condition.
According to the Israeli hospital were Allan is being treated, doctors had put the 31-year-old man into a coma, due to his deteriorating condition.
Allan is on hunger strike for little over 66 days, he is demanding to be freed and the end to the administrative detention police Israel uses to detain Palestinians without charges or trial.
And that’s all for today from the IMEMC News; this was the Thursday, August 20th, 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.