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Summary of Week in Palestine 12/24 - 31
Israeli incursions of Khan Younis refugee camp and other areas of the Palestinian Gaza Strip and West Bank continued this week, with 14 killed in Khan Younis on Thursday and Friday alone. Meanwhile, Israeli government promises of 'freedom of movement' for Palestinians during the election campaign have yet to be seen on the ground, and another Palestinian presidential candidate was arrested while campaigning.
22 Palestinians have been killed, 27 wounded, and 61 arrested this week in 49 separate invasions of Palestinian cities, towns and refugee camps. At least 41 Palestinian homes have been destroyed, major checkpoints have been closed at least eighteen times, and at least 100 acres of olive trees and orchards have been uprooted by the Israeli army.
On Monday, three six-year old children in Jayyous village were punched, kicked and beaten by Israeli soldiers, who then held the three six-year olds in a military jeep for several hours before releasing them.
On Tuesday, Israeli soldiers based at the illegal settlement of Naveh in the Gaza Strip fired four tank shells at the heavily populated Khan Yunis refugee camp, wounding seven, including a twelve-year old and a six-year old child who sustained critical wounds.
Wednesday morning, Israeli paratroopers were dropped among olive groves near the village of Salfit, in the Palestinian West Bank. They were joined by tanks and armored vehicles in an invasion of Kafr Al-Deek village which damaged a number of homes. And hundreds of olive trees were uprooted Wednesday by the Israeli army in two separate incidents in the northern Gaza Strip.
Also on Wednesday, three children were wounded, one of them critically, when an unexploded tank shell left by the Israeli army after an invasion of Jenin exploded in their hands. The children, two aged 11 and one aged 15, were playing with the shell, not realized that it was an undetonated device. The three remain in the hospital in Jenin.
Hadeyya Abu Hilal, 41, was shot in the thigh in her home.
Thursday and Friday saw a renewed invasion of the Khan Younis refugee camp by the Israeli army, the fourth major attack on the camp in the last two weeks. Three were killed by a missile dropped by the Israeli army on Thursday, and eight more were killed by tank shells and gunshots when the army invaded the camp with over 20 tanks and dozens of armored military vehicles. Twenty five homes were destroyed, which, added to the 45 destroyed last week, has brought the number of people who have been made homeless this winter in Khan Younis to over 500. The Israeli army claimed that it conducted the operation to avenge the firing of homemade shells by the Palestinian resistance at nearby settlements and military bases (no injuries were reported on the Israeli side). However, one Israeli soldier was killed by resistance fighters during the invasion itself.
In a separate invasion in the northern Gaza refugee camp of Jabalia on Friday, a brother and sister aged 10 and 11 were hit by Israeli tank shells. The girl,Ibtihal Mithqal Thaher, 10 years old, was killed, and her brother Rafeeq, 11, was seriously wounded.
In the midst of the Israeli military occupation, Palestinians continue to prepare for their Presidential elections on January 9th.
On Monday, Palestinian presidential candidate Mustafa Barghouti, an independent candidate who is the head of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, was arrested in Jerusalem while campaigning, just one day after the Israeli Knesset agreed to allow candidates to campaign in East Jerusalem. Bahia is with his campaign committee:
The People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist/Leninist group, has decided not to boycott the election, but will endorse Dr. Mustapha Barghouti.
The PFLP endorsement will likely increase Barghouti's chances against the leading candidate, Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah party. Barghouti is currently polling at around 22%, compared to Abbas' 42%.
And in the West Bank village of Jayyous on Friday, hundreds of Palestinian farmers, Israeli peace activists and international supporters held a demonstration against the Israeli annexation wall in which Israelis planted olive trees to replace those uprooted by the Israeli army over the last week. Palestinians from Jayyous, which is six kilometers on the Palestinian side of the 1967 border between Israel and Palestine, recently obtained plans by the Israeli government to expand the nearby settlement of Silfin through Jayyous farmers' land. Talfiq Salim is one of the farmers whose olive trees were uprooted.
His brother, Abu Fateh, also had all of his olive trees uprooted:
One of the groups organizing Friday's protest, the Israeli peace bloc Gush Shalom, issued a report this week detailing the Israeli government's plan to annex land and expand settlements in the West Bank by building the annexation wall deep within Palestinian territory. Uri Avnery, the head of Gush Shalom:
Jayous, in the Qalqiliya District, has already had 72% of its lands confiscated, some 1,900 acres and 7 groundwater wells. At least 300 families are losing their only source of income. Their situation is just one example of the hundreds of villages and towns whose land is being confiscated by Israel through the building of the wall. 26,000 acres have already been confiscated over the last three years of the wall's construction, and the construction continues every day.
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