The Israeli occupation soldiers and paramilitary settlers continued on Saturday their daily attacks on the Palestinian people – abducting 12 Palestinians, assaulting a Palestinian near Bethlehem and seizing a bulldozer. In addition, Israeli paramilitary settlers assaulted shepherds east of Yatta.
In Battir, in the southern West Bank, the Israeli occupation forces beat Khaled Atta Muammar, a man in his fifties, during a verbal argument with one of the occupation soldiers. Khaled was trying to argue with the soldiers because they refused to allow a sick child (his neighbor’s daughter) to leave the village with her father to go to the hospital. Instead of allowing the child to get to the hospital for needed medical treatment, the troops beat her elder neighbor for questioning them.
East of Yatta, in the Hebron District in the southern West Bank, Israeli occupation forces stormed the Ma’in area, east of Yatta, photographed Palestinian homes, and conducted a survey in the area, using drones.
In the central West Bank on Saturday, the Israeli occupation forces stormed the town of Nilin, west of Ramallah, and fired tear gas canisters at citizens’ homes, without any injuries reported. Israeli paramilitary colonial settlers also gathered at the entrance to the town under the protection of the Israeli occupation army, shouting anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab slogans.
The Israeli occupation forces seized a bulldozer in the town of Qarawat Bani Hassan, west of Salfit, belonging to Palestinian Karam Radhi, while he was working on his land on the western side of the town.
In pre-dawn raids on Saturday, the Israeli occupation forces abducted 12 Palestinians from all over the West Bank, five of whom were taken from the town of Battir – an area that has recently been resisting Israeli expansion with non-violent weekly protests. The five included a woman and four young men from the town of Battir: Wissam Fouad Awaina, Ahmed Issa Abu Nima, Hamza Iyad Qatoush, and Mazen Walid Obaidullah, all of whom are in their twenties. The woman who was taken was not identified.
The Israeli military invaded the town with numerous armored vehicles, terrorizing the local residents who were asleep in their beds at the time. They abducted the Palestinians from their homes, after ransacking and searching their homes.
And from the Jerusalem governorate, the Israeli occupation forces abducted a young man and woman near the Damascus Gate (Bab al-Amoud) entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem, identified as Yasmine Khasib from the town of Al-Tur, and the young man Mahmoud Abdeen. Also in the Jerusalem district, troops kidnapped Samar Al-Qaisi from the town of Beit Hanina, and a young man – whose identity is not known – from Al-Wad Street in the Old City, after assaulting him.
From Qalqilia governorate, the troops abducted Abdel Fattah Nidal Harb (26 years old), after they raided his family’s house and searched him in.
From Jenin Governorate, the Israeli occupation forces arrested the young man, Islam Abu Zeina, near the “Shafi Shomron” military checkpoint, and confiscated his vehicle, while they detained two young men, Muhammad Zakaria Zubaidi and Osama Mahmoud Al-Saadi, who were with him. The other two passengers were released, but Islam was taken into custody.
The Israeli occupation forces abducted Omar Muhammad Ahmed Sawafta (19 years), from Tubas, while he was passing through the Hawara military checkpoint, south of Nablus.
Many of those abducted by the Israeli military are put into so-called ‘administrative detention’, where they are kept without any charges or access to legal representation for stretches of six months at a time, after which the Israeli military decides whether or not to release them or to keep them for another six months. Holding prisoners without any charges is direct violation of international law, but Israeli martial law authorities still hold thousands of Palestinians in this way, without ever charging them with a crime.
In Gaza Saturday, the occupation forces targeted farmers in the agricultural lands east of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, with bullets and tear gas canisters.
A correspondent with the Wafa news agency reported that the occupation forces, stationed in watchtowers and military vehicles stationed on the border strip, east of Khan Yunis, fired bullets and gas bombs at farmers while they were cultivating their border lands, forcing them to leave, without any injuries reported among them.
