Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Monday, October, 03, 2016.
A report by Palestinian NGOs shows that Israeli troops have kidnapped more than 400 Palestinians in September. These stories, and more, coming up, stay tuned.
The Palestinian Supreme Court in Ramallah, during its Monday session, decided to carry on with local elections in the occupied West Bank, and call them off in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas expressed its disappointment over the court’s decision to exclude Gaza from local elections, saying that it deepens the division between Palestinians as a whole. For his part, Secretary General of the Palestine National Initiative, Dr. Mustafa Al-Barghouthi, denounced the decision as political and not judicial.
Local elections were supposed to take place, in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, on October 8. About a month ago, the Central Elections Commission (CEC) received a Supreme Court decision to temporarily halt the cabinet’s decision to hold local elections until the court decided on the case raised before it.
In an official statement, the CEC said that elections were stopped “despite CEC’s continuous efforts to provide a valid and appropriate electoral environment, that enables the holding of transparent elections, that meets the respect of the Palestinian people and contributes to end the internal political division.”
In other news, Israeli occupation forces arrested 436 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza in September 2016, including 73 children and 11 women, a report issued by Palestinian human rights groups showed on Monday.
The reported was released by Prisoners Affairs Committee; Palestinian Prisoners Society; Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights and Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association.
151 of those arrests took place in the Jerusalem Governorate, 81 in Al-Khalil, 40 in Bethlehem, 40 in Nablus, 35 in Jenin, 32 in Ramallah and El-Bireh, 23 in Tulkarem, eight in Qalqilia, six in Tubas, six in Salfit, five from Jericho and nine from the Gaza Strip.
There are approximately 7,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, including 59 women, 12 of them minor girls.
There are approximately 350 children in Megiddo and Ofer prisons. There are 700 Palestinians held in administrative detention without charge or trial. 122 administrative detention orders were issued in September, including 44 new orders.
And that’s all for today from the IMEMC News; this was the Monday, October, 03, 2016, 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.
