Israel’s Other War…
CrossFireArabia- September 19, 2024
Coinciding with the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, the West Bank has witnessed a steep rise in Israeli violence since October 2023. Here’s an overview of the Palestinian casualties documented in the region since then.
West Bank Journalists Need Protection From Israeli Violence
- CrossFireArabia
- September 9, 2024
The Amman-based Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists condemns the ongoing violations committed by the Israeli occupation forces against journalists in the occupied West Bank.
“What is happening in the Palestinian territories in terms of persecution and systematic violations against journalists is horrific and dangerous,” the CDFJ stated last Thursday.
“The scenes shown by television networks showing the occupation bulldozers raiding journalists and firing live bullets directly at them, despite them wearing press badges and clothing that identify them,” are not acceptable.
“The West Bank has become like the Gaza Strip, with no safe place for journalists to practice their profession and carry out their work,” the CDFJ added.
The independent organization noted “the Israeli occupation targeted with live bullets seven journalists, directly and deliberately, riding in three press vehicles, clearly wearing press protection, in an area where there was no “field activities” on their way to the town of Kafr Dan, west of Jenin.”
The CDFJ noted also the occupation forces also blew up the broadcast room of Radio Nas in Jenin.
The Amman-based organization called for the monitoring and documenting violations against journalists in the cities of the West Bank, calling on the United Nations, international human rights organizations, and the media to “take urgent action to protect them from deliberate Israeli targeting.”
The Israeli occupation forces began its aggression on the northerns part of the West Bank, since 28 August, and which resulted in the killing of 34 Palestinians, including 19 in the city of Jenin, eight in Tulkarm, four in Tubas, and three n Hebron, bringing the death toll in the West Bank since 7 October, 2023 to 685.
Jenin: ‘We Will Only Raise The Palestinian Flag Here’
- CrossFireArabia
- September 4, 2024
The Israeli occupation forces have continued their onslaught on Jenin and its camp for the eighth consecutive day.
The onslaught resulted in the killing of 19 people, the injury and arrest of dozens with widespread destruction of citizens’ properties and infrastructure, including water and electricity networks, according to Wafa.
On Tuesday, 16-year-od Lujain Abdul Raouf was killed, and four journalists injured, including WAFA photojournalists Muhammad Mansour and Ayman Noubani, in an Israeli army siege of a house in the village of Kafr Dan, west of Jenin.
The occupation forces also raided several houses in the Al-Hadaf neighborhood on the outskirts of Jenin camp, tampered with their contents and destroyed their furniture.
The occupation forces stormed the Al-Zahraa neighborhood in the city and bulldozed the infrastructure and streets, while water continues to be cut off from most of the city’s neighborhoods and the camp.
Destroying streets
The occupation forces continue to destroy the center of Jenin city, as the occupation bulldozers razed Cinema Street and large parts of Hospitals Street to the vicinity of Al-Shifa Hospital, and destroyed shops in the Cinema Roundabout area and re-razed the Post Street.
The occupation bulldozers attacked a group of journalists while they were covering the destruction of the Cinema Roundabout and the surrounding shops, and opened fire directly at them, which resulted in their injury.
In Al-Jabariyat neighborhood, the occupation forces stormed the house of the detainee Zakaria Al-Zubaidi and detained his brother Yahya after vandalizing and destroying the contents of the house.
The occupation forces also continued their large-scale detention campaigns of young men in the Jenin camp and the villages of Al-Silah Al-Harithiya, Al-Yamoun and Kafr Dan west of Jenin.
They stormed the town of Qabatiya fired at citizens’ houses, Tuesday night, and resulted in the shooting of a young man in the chest while he was inside his home.
The Israeli army also detained an ambulance crew while transporting an emergency medical case to the Khalil Suleiman Governmental Hospital in Jenin and assaulted a number of them.
The Israeli occupation forces stormed the village of Muthalath Al-Shuhada, south of Jenin, deployed snipers on the roofs of several houses, raided six houses, detained a number of citizens before withdrawing from the town according to the Palestinian news agency.
Can Israel Create ‘Mini-Gazas’ in The West Bank?
- CrossFireArabia
- September 2, 2024
A UN independent expert warned, Monday, Israel’s intensification of its military assault against the northern West Bank marks a dangerous escalation of grave violence and human rights violations committed by Israel against the Palestinian people since October 7, 2023.
“Israel’s genocidal violence risks leaking out of Gaza and into the occupied Palestinian territory as a whole,” warned Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.
“The writing is on the wall, and we cannot continue to ignore it. There is mounting evidence that no Palestinian is safe under Israel’s unfettered control. While this was also true before Hamas’ attack on 7 October, the risk has since intensified,” Albanese said.
Continuous genocidal incitements by top Israeli leaders and officials remain unpunished, and are often acted upon by soldiers, armed settlers and others, revealing the intent to destroy the Palestinian people under occupation. Increasingly loud calls by Israeli leaders for turning the towns in the West Bank and refugee camps into a “mini-Gaza”, are translating into military operations that are causing heavy death tolls and widespread destruction to the West Bank’s urban areas.
Systematic aerial and ground attacks on Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem and Tubas governorates, particularly targeting refugee camps, have intensified in the past few months. Recently, on 28 August, Israeli occupation forces launched a full-scale military operation against these areas that have already killed 22 Palestinians and injured dozens.
Bulldozers have destroyed critical infrastructure, including roads, water and energy grids. New checkpoints have been established, following Israel’s Foreign Minister Katz’s declaration that “We must deal with the threat just as we deal with the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and whatever steps are required. This is a war for everything, and we must win it.”
An evacuation order has been issued to Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem and a city hospital in besieged Jenin, currently treating 150 patients. The Israeli occupation forces have blocked entry to the three main hospitals and imposed a curfew, while Israeli ground forces have invaded and besieged Shu’fat refugee camp in East Jerusalem.
The expert notes that since 7 October 2023, 652 Palestinians have been killed outside of Gaza, including 151children, thousands injured, over 3,300 have been displaced and over 12,000 arbitrarily detained, de facto hostages of the unlawful occupying Power.
The increasing violence in the West Bank coincides with unprecedented levels of displacement, depopulation and land confiscation carried out by the State of Israel in collaboration with settler militias in the area since the Oslo era. This continues even after the International Court of Justice concluded that this occupation is unlawful, and Israel must dismantle it together with the colonies and its associated regime.
“Apartheid Israel is targeting Gaza and the West Bank simultaneously, as part of an overall process of elimination, replacement and territorial expansion” she said.
“The long-standing impunity granted to Israel is enabling the de-Palestinisation of the occupied territory, leaving Palestinians at the mercy of the forces pursuing their elimination as a national group,” warned the expert.
“The international community, made of both states and non-state actors, including companies and financial institutions, must do everything it can to immediately end the risk of genocide against the Palestinian people under Israel’s occupation, ensure accountability and ultimately end Israel’s colonisation of Palestinian territory.”
Francesca Albanese is the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967
The Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
UN Human Rights, Country Page: Occupied Palestinian Territoryand Israel.
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