Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Wednesday, February, 22, 2017.
Israeli troops destroy a home in Jerusalem and force West Bank Palestinian families out of their homes for military training. These stories, and more, coming up, stay tuned.
Israeli forces demolished on Wednesday a Palestinian home at the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, local sources reported.
Troops and officers of the Israeli Jerusalem municipality stormed the area at around five in the morning forced the Abu Rimouz family out of their homes at gunpoint, then municipality bulldozers demolished the house. The family of seven, including five children, are now left without any shelter, local sources reported.
Elsewhere, the Israeli army ordered Palestinian families living in the village of Khirbit Taana to leave their homes on Wednesday as the army intends to conduct military training in the area. Khirbit Taana is a small Palestinian community located near the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
Due to the military order about 30 families were forced out of their homes from dawn on Wednesday until five in the evening, local sources reported.
Residents of Khirbit Taana and other Palestinian villages located in area C of the West Bank are often subject to evection from their homes as the Israeli army declares the areas as firing zones used to conduct military training. As the stalemate continues in the peace process Israeli occupation forces still control area C which amounts to 60% of the West Bank.
Also on Wednesday at dawn, 23 Palestinian civilians were abducted during invasions and home searches targeting West Bank communities by Israeli troops. invasions and home searches were reported in the southern West Bank districts of Bethlehem and Hebron in addition to Ramallah in central West Bank and Jenin and Nablus in northern West Bank.
In other news, the Palestinian district court of Bethlehem sentenced on Wednesday three Palestinian business men to two years in prison and fines for trading Israeli settlements products.
This is the first such case since the Palestinian government based a bill back 2010 making it illegal under the Palestinian law to trade settlement products.
And that’s all for today from the IMEMC News; this was the Wednesday, February, 22, 2017, news round-up from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. From more news and updates, please visit our website at www.imemc.org today’s report has been brought to you by George Rishmawi and me Ghassan Bannoura.
