13 may 2019
Israeli settlers chopped down dozens of Palestinian-owned almond trees in the Yanun village, south of the northern occupied West Bank district of Nablus, on Monday.
Rashed Marar, head of the village council, told Ma'an that a number of Israeli settlers from the illegal Israeli settlement of Hill 777, located north of Yanun, chopped down dozens of almond trees.
Marar mentioned that he was unable to reach the area due to Israeli forces surrounding the trees and providing protection to the settlers.
Hence, Marar could not confirm the actual number of trees that have been chopped down.
More than 600,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law, with recent announcements of settlement expansion provoking condemnation from the international community.
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem reported that Israeli settlers' vandalism in the occupied West Bank is a daily routine and is fully backed by Israeli authorities.
"In just over two months, from the beginning of May to 7 July 2018, B'Tselem documented 10 instances in which settlers destroyed a total of more than 2,000 trees and grapevines and burned down a barley field and bales of hay," B'Tselem said in its report.
The report added "Settler violence and vandalism takes place with full backing by the Israeli authorities. Sometimes soldiers take part in the assault; at other times, they stand idly by. The police makes no substantial effort to investigate the incidents, nor takes measures to prevent them or stop them in real time."
Rashed Marar, head of the village council, told Ma'an that a number of Israeli settlers from the illegal Israeli settlement of Hill 777, located north of Yanun, chopped down dozens of almond trees.
Marar mentioned that he was unable to reach the area due to Israeli forces surrounding the trees and providing protection to the settlers.
Hence, Marar could not confirm the actual number of trees that have been chopped down.
More than 600,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law, with recent announcements of settlement expansion provoking condemnation from the international community.
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem reported that Israeli settlers' vandalism in the occupied West Bank is a daily routine and is fully backed by Israeli authorities.
"In just over two months, from the beginning of May to 7 July 2018, B'Tselem documented 10 instances in which settlers destroyed a total of more than 2,000 trees and grapevines and burned down a barley field and bales of hay," B'Tselem said in its report.
The report added "Settler violence and vandalism takes place with full backing by the Israeli authorities. Sometimes soldiers take part in the assault; at other times, they stand idly by. The police makes no substantial effort to investigate the incidents, nor takes measures to prevent them or stop them in real time."
12 may 2019
A new illegal Israeli settlement outpost was set up, on Saturday, on Palestinian-owned lands belonging to the residents of the Deir al-Hatab village, east of the northern occupied West Bank district of Nablus.
A Palestinian official who monitors settlement activist in the northern West Bank, Ghassan Daghlas, told Ma'an that the residents of Deit al-Hatab were shocked to find out on Saturday noon that Israeli settlers set up a new settlement outpost, in the form of three large caravans, on their lands.
In August 2018, the Jerusalem District Court ruled that if Israeli settlers built a settlement on private Palestinian land with "good intentions" then it should not be removed. Therefore, allowing more Palestinian lands to be seized by Israeli settlers as they see fit.
Hanan Ashrawi, Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee Member, said that the court's ruling provides the Israeli settlers with further motivation "to steal the private property of Palestinian landowners throughout occupied Palestine without any curbs or accountability."
A Palestinian official who monitors settlement activist in the northern West Bank, Ghassan Daghlas, told Ma'an that the residents of Deit al-Hatab were shocked to find out on Saturday noon that Israeli settlers set up a new settlement outpost, in the form of three large caravans, on their lands.
In August 2018, the Jerusalem District Court ruled that if Israeli settlers built a settlement on private Palestinian land with "good intentions" then it should not be removed. Therefore, allowing more Palestinian lands to be seized by Israeli settlers as they see fit.
Hanan Ashrawi, Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee Member, said that the court's ruling provides the Israeli settlers with further motivation "to steal the private property of Palestinian landowners throughout occupied Palestine without any curbs or accountability."
11 may 2019
The Israeli occupation navy on Saturday arrested three Palestinian fishermen off the shore of the besieged Gaza Strip.
Zakariya Baker, a Palestinian official in charge of documenting Israeli attacks on Gaza fishermen, said that Israeli gunboats heavily opened fire at fishing boats west of Gaza city and detained three fishermen.
Baker said that the Israeli navy arrested the three brothers Emran, Mansour, and Atef Baker, seized their boat, and transferred them to an undeclared destination.
On Friday, the Israeli authorities allowed Gaza fishermen to resume fishing after a week-long ban in the wake of the latest military assault on the seaside area and expanded the permitted fishing zone to 12 nautical miles.
The Israeli naval forces on almost a daily basis chase Palestinian fishermen in Gaza, shoot at them, arrest them, or confiscate their boats and fishing equipment in violation of the agreement signed between Israel and Palestinian resistance factions following the 2014 war.
Zakariya Baker, a Palestinian official in charge of documenting Israeli attacks on Gaza fishermen, said that Israeli gunboats heavily opened fire at fishing boats west of Gaza city and detained three fishermen.
Baker said that the Israeli navy arrested the three brothers Emran, Mansour, and Atef Baker, seized their boat, and transferred them to an undeclared destination.
On Friday, the Israeli authorities allowed Gaza fishermen to resume fishing after a week-long ban in the wake of the latest military assault on the seaside area and expanded the permitted fishing zone to 12 nautical miles.
The Israeli naval forces on almost a daily basis chase Palestinian fishermen in Gaza, shoot at them, arrest them, or confiscate their boats and fishing equipment in violation of the agreement signed between Israel and Palestinian resistance factions following the 2014 war.
10 may 2019
According to a new report issued Friday by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, up to 150 Palestinians have been rendered homeless by Israeli home demolitions in the past two weeks alone.
The report only counts the demolitions carried out in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and does not count the 130 homes destroyed and 700 damaged in the Gaza Strip during the massive Israeli bombardment of the past weekend. An estimated 6 Israeli homes were slightly damaged by the Palestinian shells fired in response to the Israeli bombardment.
In the biweekly Protection of Civilians Report issued by UN-OCHA, in the past two weeks, Israeli forces destroyed 41 Palestinian-owned structures in occupied East Jerusalem and Area C of the West Bank, directly displacing 38 homeowners and affecting 121 others.
Most of the demolitions took place on the pretext of construction without a permit. Palestinians have been unable to receive permits for construction of any structures on the land they own since the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem began in 1967.
Of these demolitions, 37 were in East Jerusalem and four in Area C of the West Bank (the area that has been under full Israeli control since the Oslo Accords in 1994 – despite the requirement that these lands be returned to Palestinian rule by 1998).
On April 29 alone, the Israeli authorities demolished 31 structures in multiple neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, marking the highest number of structures demolished in a single day in East Jerusalem since OCHA began systematically monitoring demolitions in 2009.
On April 25, the Israeli authorities demolished a home in Az-Zawiya village in the West Bank on punitive grounds, displacing a family of seven, including five children, the report continued.
The home belonged to the family of a 19-year-old Palestinian who was accused of killing an Israeli soldier and an Israeli settler, and injuring another soldier, near Ariel Israeli settlement on March 17, 2019. The Palestinian was subsequently killed by Israeli forces in a separate incident.
This was the fifth punitive demolition since the beginning of 2019 compared to six in 2018 and nine in 2017.
During the full month of April 2019, at least 70 structures were demolished in the occupied Palestinian Territories (including East Jerusalem) by Israeli forces, displacing at least 70 people- including 33 children- and affecting a further 313 people, according to OCHA.
All the demolitions and confiscations, other than the two punitive demolitions, were carried out on grounds of lacking an Israeli-issued building permit. Most of the demolished structures supported agricultural, herding and commercial livelihoods.
As the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions points out, as is the case in situations of armed conflict including situations of military occupation, International Humanitarian Law applies to the occupied Palestinian territories. The Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 enshrine many of those provisions most pertinent to the protection of the Palestinian population.
As per article 43 of the Hague regulations, Israel as the occupying power is obliged to provide for the well-being of the protected Palestinian population and to ensure“public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely necessary the laws in force in the country”. Israel must therefore refrain from altering local laws in place or extending its own legislation over the occupied territory – including extending these discriminatory planning laws.
IHL stipulates that private property must be respected. Specifically, it is forbidden for an Occupying Power to destroy property except where such destruction is rendered “absolutely necessary by military operations.”
Article 49(1) prohibits individual or mass forcible transfers. Such forcible transfers are occasioned through the establishment of a coercive environment, which encompasses practices such as home demolitions and threats of demolitions, relocations, settler violence and harassment and restrictions on movement and access, which force inhabitants to relocate to other areas.
The demolition orders infringe upon norms of international human rights law, which Israel is obliged to respect and uphold. Such rights include the right to: adequate standard of living, adequate housing, freedom from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, non-interference with privacy, home and family, and equality and non-discrimination.
In its General Comments, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights identified legal security of tenure as one of the core factors in ensuring adequate housing and stated that “all persons should possess a degree of security of tenure which guarantees legal protection against forced eviction, harassment and other threats”.
Under international law, the State has the duty both to refrain from forced evictions and to ensure that the law is enforced against third parties who carry out forced evictions.
Instead, Israeli occupying forces regularly carry out both punitive and ‘administrative’ home demolitions, with the stated objective of displacing Palestinians from their land in order to expand the territory of the state of Israel by force.
The report only counts the demolitions carried out in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and does not count the 130 homes destroyed and 700 damaged in the Gaza Strip during the massive Israeli bombardment of the past weekend. An estimated 6 Israeli homes were slightly damaged by the Palestinian shells fired in response to the Israeli bombardment.
In the biweekly Protection of Civilians Report issued by UN-OCHA, in the past two weeks, Israeli forces destroyed 41 Palestinian-owned structures in occupied East Jerusalem and Area C of the West Bank, directly displacing 38 homeowners and affecting 121 others.
Most of the demolitions took place on the pretext of construction without a permit. Palestinians have been unable to receive permits for construction of any structures on the land they own since the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem began in 1967.
Of these demolitions, 37 were in East Jerusalem and four in Area C of the West Bank (the area that has been under full Israeli control since the Oslo Accords in 1994 – despite the requirement that these lands be returned to Palestinian rule by 1998).
On April 29 alone, the Israeli authorities demolished 31 structures in multiple neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, marking the highest number of structures demolished in a single day in East Jerusalem since OCHA began systematically monitoring demolitions in 2009.
On April 25, the Israeli authorities demolished a home in Az-Zawiya village in the West Bank on punitive grounds, displacing a family of seven, including five children, the report continued.
The home belonged to the family of a 19-year-old Palestinian who was accused of killing an Israeli soldier and an Israeli settler, and injuring another soldier, near Ariel Israeli settlement on March 17, 2019. The Palestinian was subsequently killed by Israeli forces in a separate incident.
This was the fifth punitive demolition since the beginning of 2019 compared to six in 2018 and nine in 2017.
During the full month of April 2019, at least 70 structures were demolished in the occupied Palestinian Territories (including East Jerusalem) by Israeli forces, displacing at least 70 people- including 33 children- and affecting a further 313 people, according to OCHA.
All the demolitions and confiscations, other than the two punitive demolitions, were carried out on grounds of lacking an Israeli-issued building permit. Most of the demolished structures supported agricultural, herding and commercial livelihoods.
As the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions points out, as is the case in situations of armed conflict including situations of military occupation, International Humanitarian Law applies to the occupied Palestinian territories. The Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 enshrine many of those provisions most pertinent to the protection of the Palestinian population.
As per article 43 of the Hague regulations, Israel as the occupying power is obliged to provide for the well-being of the protected Palestinian population and to ensure“public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely necessary the laws in force in the country”. Israel must therefore refrain from altering local laws in place or extending its own legislation over the occupied territory – including extending these discriminatory planning laws.
IHL stipulates that private property must be respected. Specifically, it is forbidden for an Occupying Power to destroy property except where such destruction is rendered “absolutely necessary by military operations.”
Article 49(1) prohibits individual or mass forcible transfers. Such forcible transfers are occasioned through the establishment of a coercive environment, which encompasses practices such as home demolitions and threats of demolitions, relocations, settler violence and harassment and restrictions on movement and access, which force inhabitants to relocate to other areas.
The demolition orders infringe upon norms of international human rights law, which Israel is obliged to respect and uphold. Such rights include the right to: adequate standard of living, adequate housing, freedom from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, non-interference with privacy, home and family, and equality and non-discrimination.
In its General Comments, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights identified legal security of tenure as one of the core factors in ensuring adequate housing and stated that “all persons should possess a degree of security of tenure which guarantees legal protection against forced eviction, harassment and other threats”.
Under international law, the State has the duty both to refrain from forced evictions and to ensure that the law is enforced against third parties who carry out forced evictions.
Instead, Israeli occupying forces regularly carry out both punitive and ‘administrative’ home demolitions, with the stated objective of displacing Palestinians from their land in order to expand the territory of the state of Israel by force.
7 may 2019
Israeli forces forced 15 Palestinian families to evacuate from their homes in northern Jordan Valley, in the northern occupied West Bank, on Tuesday, in order to make way for active military training.
Mutaz Bisharat, a Palestinian official who monitors settlement activity in the Jordan Valley/Tubas district, said that Israel ordered 15 families, consisting of 98 individuals, mostly women and children, to evacuate the in the Hamsa al-Fawqa area, in the Jordan Valley.
The evacuation orders obliges the families to evacuate their homes for the next four weeks for three days per week; on Sunday from 1:00 p.m., on Monday from 4:00 p.m. to Tuesday 10:00 a.m., and on Wednesday from 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Palestinian residents of the Jordan Valley regularly face evacuations and interruption due to Israeli military exercises on or near their land. The district of Tubas, meanwhile, is one of the occupied West Bank's most important agricultural centers.
The majority of the Jordan Valley is under full Israeli military control, despite being within the West Bank. Meanwhile, at least 44 percent of the total land in the Jordan Valley has been reappropriated by Israeli forces for military purposes and training exercises.
According to the Palestinian nonprofit the Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ), more than 400,000 dunams (98,842 acres) of the 720,000 dunams (177,916 acres) that make up the total area of the Jordan Valley has been transformed into closed military and firing zones, with at least 27,000 dunams (6,672 acres) confiscated for illegal Israeli settlement building.
The Israeli rights group B'Tselem has emphasized the detrimental effects such trainings have on communities that are dependent on farming and shepherding. "B’Tselem’s research has found that over the course of the military maneuver, ten sheep and goats died in the evacuated communities. In addition, ammunition remnants from the military training caused fires."
Israeli military training exercises in the Jordan Valley have increased dramatically since 2012 and are one of many tools used to forcibly displace rural Palestinian communities, NGO Jordan Valley Solidarity says, part of a historic process of creeping annexation of the valley by Israel's military.
Forming a third of the occupied West Bank and with 88 percent of its land classified as Area C, the Jordan Valley has long been a strategic area of land unlikely to return to Palestinians following Israel's occupation in 1967.
Mutaz Bisharat, a Palestinian official who monitors settlement activity in the Jordan Valley/Tubas district, said that Israel ordered 15 families, consisting of 98 individuals, mostly women and children, to evacuate the in the Hamsa al-Fawqa area, in the Jordan Valley.
The evacuation orders obliges the families to evacuate their homes for the next four weeks for three days per week; on Sunday from 1:00 p.m., on Monday from 4:00 p.m. to Tuesday 10:00 a.m., and on Wednesday from 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Palestinian residents of the Jordan Valley regularly face evacuations and interruption due to Israeli military exercises on or near their land. The district of Tubas, meanwhile, is one of the occupied West Bank's most important agricultural centers.
The majority of the Jordan Valley is under full Israeli military control, despite being within the West Bank. Meanwhile, at least 44 percent of the total land in the Jordan Valley has been reappropriated by Israeli forces for military purposes and training exercises.
According to the Palestinian nonprofit the Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ), more than 400,000 dunams (98,842 acres) of the 720,000 dunams (177,916 acres) that make up the total area of the Jordan Valley has been transformed into closed military and firing zones, with at least 27,000 dunams (6,672 acres) confiscated for illegal Israeli settlement building.
The Israeli rights group B'Tselem has emphasized the detrimental effects such trainings have on communities that are dependent on farming and shepherding. "B’Tselem’s research has found that over the course of the military maneuver, ten sheep and goats died in the evacuated communities. In addition, ammunition remnants from the military training caused fires."
Israeli military training exercises in the Jordan Valley have increased dramatically since 2012 and are one of many tools used to forcibly displace rural Palestinian communities, NGO Jordan Valley Solidarity says, part of a historic process of creeping annexation of the valley by Israel's military.
Forming a third of the occupied West Bank and with 88 percent of its land classified as Area C, the Jordan Valley has long been a strategic area of land unlikely to return to Palestinians following Israel's occupation in 1967.
Israeli soldiers abducted, on Tuesday at dawn, five young Palestinian men from Azzoun town, east of the northern West Bank city of Qalqilia, in addition to invading the az-Zawiya village, west of the central West Bank city of Salfit, and confiscated a car near Bethlehem.
Media sources in Qalqilia said several army vehicles invaded ‘Azzoun town, before the soldiers stormed and searched homes, and abducted five Palestinians.
The Qalqilia office of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) has reported that the soldiers abducted Mohammad Monir Mashal, 25, in addition to four former political prisoners, identified as Odai Samir Abu Haniyya, 28, Ja’far Abdul-Karim Salim, 24, Mohammad Nidal Mashal, 24, and Luay Anwar Mashal, 26.
Furthermore, the soldiers invaded the az-Zawiya village, west of the central West Bank city of Salfit, confiscated a “Carlo” gun, and searched the home of a political prisoner, identified as Hamza Ya’coub Raddad.
In Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem, the soldiers confiscated the car of a young man, identified as Mohammad Ali Thawabta, from Beit Fajjar town, south of the city, after detaining him near the entrance of the al-Arroub refugee camp, north of the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
Media sources in Qalqilia said several army vehicles invaded ‘Azzoun town, before the soldiers stormed and searched homes, and abducted five Palestinians.
The Qalqilia office of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) has reported that the soldiers abducted Mohammad Monir Mashal, 25, in addition to four former political prisoners, identified as Odai Samir Abu Haniyya, 28, Ja’far Abdul-Karim Salim, 24, Mohammad Nidal Mashal, 24, and Luay Anwar Mashal, 26.
Furthermore, the soldiers invaded the az-Zawiya village, west of the central West Bank city of Salfit, confiscated a “Carlo” gun, and searched the home of a political prisoner, identified as Hamza Ya’coub Raddad.
In Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem, the soldiers confiscated the car of a young man, identified as Mohammad Ali Thawabta, from Beit Fajjar town, south of the city, after detaining him near the entrance of the al-Arroub refugee camp, north of the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
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