Illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers carried out a new assault on Friday targeting the Khallet as‑Sidra Bedouin community, near Mikhmas in the northeastern part of occupied Jerusalem in the West Bank, vandalizing a Palestinian home and stealing belongings while the residents were away.
The Jerusalem Governorate has reported that the colonizers attacked the home of Yousef Zawahra while he was attending Friday prayers, breaking into the tin‑roofed structure, stealing property, and damaging its contents.
In a related development, Israeli occupation forces invaded the al‑Qubba neighborhood in Mikhmas, though no home break‑ins or abductions were reported.
The attack follows a deadly assault on Wednesday evening, when Nasrallah Mohammad Jamal Abu Siyam, 19, was killed and several others injured during a colonizer attack on Mikhmas carried out under the protection of Israeli occupation forces. During that assault, colonizers also stole dozens of sheep belonging to local residents.
|Abu Siyam’s Killing Highlights Escalating Colonizer Attacks|
Mikhmas and the nearby Khallet as‑Sidra community have faced repeated colonizer attacks, including assaults on residents, live‑fire targeting, the destruction and burning of homes, animal shelters, and vehicles, as well as the vandalism and theft of solar panels and surveillance cameras.
|Israeli Colonizers Attack Church in Occupied Jerusalem|
Khallet as‑Sidra lies roughly 800 meters north‑east of Mikhmas and is home to 16 families from the Ka’abna and Jahalin tribes, totaling 59 residents, about half of them children. The community relies primarily on livestock herding for its livelihood.
All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention, in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions. They also constitute war crimes under International Law.
Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective punishment and acts of terror against civilian populations.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.
Articles 53 and 147, prohibit the destruction of civilian property and classify pillage as a war crime.
