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Germany has condemned Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s remarks calling for the destruction of Palestinian cities like Jenin and Nablus in the West Bank, comparing them to the devastation of Jabalia in northern Gaza. Smotrich’s exact words were, “Funduq, Nablus, and Jenin must look like Jabalia,” sparking fears of further killings, forced displacement, and the erasure of Palestinian existence.
CrossFireArabia
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.
CrossFireArabia
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.
CrossFireArabia
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.
