Report: Israel killed 3,100 school students, 130 teachers in Gaza
MEMO | November 14, 2023
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said as many as 3,141 Palestinian students have been killed by Israel in the besieged Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank since 7 October, along with 130 teachers and administrators.
In a statement, the PCBS said 3,117 Palestinian students were killed in the Gaza Strip between 7 October and 11 November while 24 students were killed in the West Bank. A further 4,863 have been injured during this period; 4,613 of them in the Gaza Strip and 250 in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli occupation forces have also arrested 67 students, all of them from the West Bank, during that period.
As many as 403 teachers and administrators were wounded by the Israeli raids on the besieged Gaza Strip while more than 40 teachers and administrators were arrested in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli warplanes have purposefully targeted 239 government schools in the Gaza Strip with air strikes, causing severe destruction to 45 schools while 50 schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA) have been attacked. In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army has attacked 27 government schools, the PCBS report found.
Israeli Finance Minister Demands Security Zones Around Illegal West Bank Settlements
By Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | November 9, 2023
Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of the Religious Zionism party in the ruling right-wing coalition, demanded Tel Aviv impose security zones around illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank on Monday. The letter Smotrich has sent to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant includes an insistence that Palestinians be kept away during the ongoing olive harvest season.
This follows a pattern of occupying forces and settlers exploiting the war on Gaza as an opportunity to further cut Palestinian towns, cities, and villages off from each other via more military checkpoints, cement blocks, iron gates, and earth mounds.
“I demand that a written directive be issued immediately by the political echelon to the Israel Forces to create those wide security zones around the settlements and roads and to prevent Arabs from approaching them… including for the olive harvest,” Smotrich’s letter reads.
Murders of Palestinians by settlers and soldiers alike in the West Bank are concurrently soaring while apartheid Israel concurrently wages its unprecedented bombing campaign against the besieged Gaza Strip, killing thousands of civilians and children.
At least 175 Palestinians have been killed, and thousands injured, in the West Bank since the October 7th Hamas attack on southern Israel. According to UNICEF, dozens of children have been killed and injured in the West Bank during the past month.
On October 28th, Bilal Mohammad Saleh, the 40-year-old wild herbs vendor, was shot in the chest by a settler and murdered in front of his wife, children, and other relatives while the Israeli military stood by and watched.
Bilal and his family were harvesting olives on land he inherited from his father, just less than a dozen miles south of Nablus, in the village of al-Sawiya. The village is encircled by Jewish-only colonies, or illegal settlements, Palestinian residents are only able to build and work on five percent of the 12,000 dunums that they own.
The area has been terrorized for years by the settlers. Nihad Arar, the village council head, told Al Jazeera, “[They] cut down our trees, burn our farms, steal our olives, and are known to assault Palestinians inside their homes and on their own property.”
As the war on Gaza rages, settler attacks and murders on Palestinians, including those working their olive groves during the prime harvest month of October have significantly escalated.
Mohammed Wadi, whose father and brother were shot dead by settlers during a funeral procession for three Palestinian olive growers killed by settlers a day earlier, told Reuters that although the settlers used to aim low at Palestinians in the past, “[n]ow, they shoot to kill.”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that, since the October 7th Hamas attack and the war on Gaza began, settler attacks on Palestinians have more than doubled.
For Palestinians, prior to this month, this year was already one of the deadliest on record. Before the end of September, more than 220 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces, including over three dozen children. That figure included 187 people who were murdered in the occupied territories and another 37 killed – mostly amidst a smaller bombing campaign – in the Gaza Strip.
In March, Smotrich proclaimed that there is “no such thing as a Palestinian people.” His party, along with National Security Minister Itmar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party, support massive settlement expansion and ultimately the complete annexation of the West Bank. Additionally, Smotrich has endorsed illegal collective punishment policies and called for “wiping out” the entire Palestinian village of Huwwara earlier this year.
With Smotrich at the helm, approving new settlements and the demolition of Palestinian homes, the Netanyahu coalition has set records for illegal settlement construction this year.
As Mondoweiss explains, “Smotrich holds sway over two ministries — the first is the Finance Ministry, for which he is directly responsible given his role as Finance Minister, and the other is a new position in the Defense Ministry, essentially making him the governor of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and most crucially making him responsible for settlement in the West Bank.”
Ben-Gvir announced last month that Tel Aviv would purchase and distribute 10,000 assault rifles to Israeli citizens including within the West Bank’s illegal settlements. According to Axios, the US State Department is set to approve a $34 million sale of 24,000 M-16 semiautomatic and automatic rifles after reportedly receiving assurances from Tel Aviv that the weapons will not be provided to settlers.
It is not at all clear if Ben-Gvir will hold to that promise, as he has personally distributed hundreds of rifles to settlers in recent weeks.
The other mass displacement: while eyes are on Gaza, settlers advance on West Bank herders
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs | November 1, 2023
Shortly after armed Israeli settlers threatened to kill them if they did not leave, 24 Palestinian households totaling 141 people, half of whom are children, were displaced from Khirbat Zanuta in the southern West Bank.
On 28 October 2023, the families dismantled about 50 residential and animal structures and vacated the area with their 5,000 livestock. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has previously documented settler attacks in this community, most recently on 12, 21 and 26 October. About two thirds of the families that comprised this community are now displaced.
“On 26 October, settlers attacked us, destroying our homes, water tanks, solar panels, and cars,” said 43-year-old Abu Khaled from Khirbet Zanuta. “I felt the presence of death so tangibly as if I saw it with my own eyes. I was torn between staying in or leaving the place I love, where I belong, where I may die. On 28 October, I made the hardest decision in my life: to leave Zanuta and leave everything behind, as memories. I did this to protect my children.”
These experiences are not unique to Khirbat Zanuta. In 15 herding communities across the West Bank, at least 98 households comprising 828 people, including 313 children, have been displaced amid settler violence or increased movement restrictions since 7 October. Since then, Israeli settler violence has increased significantly, from an already high average of three incidents per day thus far in 2023 to a current average of seven per day.
In this period, OCHA has recorded 171 settler attacks against Palestinians, resulting in Palestinian casualties (26 incidents), damage to Palestinian properties (115 incidents), or both (30 incidents). Cases of harassment, trespass, and intimidation are not included in these statistics when they do not result in damage or casualties, although they too increase the pressure on Palestinians to leave.
On 9 October, 40 people were displaced from the herding community of Al Ganoub. Armed Israeli settlers had raided the community, threatening residents at gunpoint, saying they would kill them if they did not leave within an hour. Abu Jamal, 75, is one of those who were displaced. “Settlers set fire to our tent and stole my goats,” he told us. “They destroyed everything that had kept me here.” Another residential structure was also set on fire during this incident.Since 7 October, access restrictions, typically imposed by the Israeli occupation authorities, have intensified throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. These are particularly severe in areas near illegal Israeli settlements and in the ‘Seam Zone,’ the Palestinian area isolated by Israel’s 712-kilometre-long illegal Separation Wall in the West Bank. Settlers too have imposed movement restrictions, blocking access roads to Palestinian communities. Such measures have limited Palestinians’ access to essential services and livelihoods. In some cases, settlers have also damaged water resources relied upon by herding communities, depriving them of a fundamental human necessity. Palestinian herding communities are often highly dependent on humanitarian assistance, including health and education services. However, since restrictions intensified, many of the services have had to stop.
On 12 October, eight households, comprising 51 people, were displaced from Shihda WaHamlan herding community in Nablus, after settlers threatened them at gunpoint, saying they would kill them and set their tents on fire during the night. One of the family members, 52-year-old Abu Ismail, stated: “I had no choice but to leave everything behind to protect my children.” More than one in every three settler-related incidents since 7 October has involved settlers using firearms to threaten Palestinians, including by opening fire. In almost half the cases, Israeli forces accompanied or actively supported the attackers. Many of the latter incidents were followed by confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinians, where three Palestinians were killed, and dozens injured. Eight Palestinians were killed by settlers directly, as of the end of October. Damage or destruction was caused to 24 residential structures, 40 structures used for farming, 67 vehicles and more than 400 trees and saplings. Settlements are illegal under international humanitarian law and, compounded by settler violence, they have for many years resulted in increased risks and heightened humanitarian needs among Palestinians.
At the same time, concerns are high over families who have remained and continue to endure attacks by settlers. Mohamad Abu Seif (Abu Khalid), 90, has been living with his family in the herding community of Ein Shibli for over 40 years. While they have remained, they are exposed to repetitive threats and harassment by settlers. “They prevent us from grazing our sheep,” he told us.
He and his family are among five Palestinian households, comprising 33 people, who remain in this community. All of them are at risk of displacement as grazing areas diminish by the actions of Israeli settlers. Eight families, comprising 51 people, have already left this area since 7 October. While Abu Khalid is still there, he and his family have no assurances that they would be able to remain for much longer.
Widespread destruction in Jenin following massive Israeli raid
The Cradle | October 30, 2023
Dozens of Israeli army vehicles, bulldozers, and drones wreaked havoc to the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on 30 October during an early morning raid that saw Palestinian resistance fighters powerfully confront the invading forces.
Following the devastating incursion, the Jenin Brigades issued a statement confirming that their fighters drove off the Israeli army, damaging at least 30 Israeli armored vehicles and leaving an unknown number of Israeli soldiers dead.
For its part, the Palestinian Health Ministry said at least four Palestinians were killed during the clashes in Jenin. About 120 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since 7 October, with nearly 2,000 injured.
The Israeli forces besieged the rebellious city from the early hours of Monday, attacking Jenin Governmental Hospital, dropping bombs on residential buildings, destroying streets leading up to the adjacent refugee camp, placing dirt mounds to separate the camp from the city, and bulldozing major landmarks.
Mass arrest campaigns also continued across the occupied West Bank on Sunday night, as Tel Aviv targeted the Dheisheh camp, Janata, Nahalin, and Beit Fajjar in the Bethlehem district, as well as Hebron, Ramallah, and Nablus.
At least 60 Palestinians were detained, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.
Over 1,500 Palestinians have been arrested since the start of the Gaza-Israel war on 7 October, as Israel has launched nightly arrest campaigns in the occupied West Bank. At least 4,000 laborers from Gaza have also been detained, pushing the number of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons past 10,000.
Total War – The Economic Backbone of the Occupation
Gazans being held by Israeli police. Photo from one of the workers.
International Solidarity Movement | October 15, 2023
EXPLOITATION AND OCCUPATION
Hundreds of Gazan workers are being given refuge in Palestine, after having been dumped in the West Bank by Israel.
45 of them are in al-Khalil and the ISM spoke to many of them this evening.
These labourers were working in Israeli settlements. When Hamas broke out of Gaza they were rounded up, detained, and at least one of them was beaten and hospitalised. They spent four hours in prison, their phones confiscated and without contact with the outside world. One man says 6500NIS was stolen from him by the police.
Apartments have been provided by charitable individuals and groups are giving them food and bringing them brand-new clothing to replace the belongings they were not allowed to bring from Israel. No help comes from the P.A.
SO WHAT WERE THESE GUYS DOING IN ISRAEL?
After 16 years of blockade, Gaza’s economy has collapsed. Gazans buy Israeli work permits so as to get jobs as labourers in construction or hospitality. These permits, valid for one month, are purchased from specialised companies and cost 3,000 NIS. Gazan workers earn 6000 NIS monthly for 45 hour weeks. Israelis would be paid around 20,000 shekels for doing an equivalent job. These migrant workers have no health insurance or job security. They have to be married, too.
Women migrant workers find jobs in factories or in agriculture. Manual labour is the only option available to people from Gaza. One of the workers we spoke to has a degree in engineering, one qualified as a social worker and another was a teacher.
Visits to their wives and families are possible at weekends, and they try to return at least twice a month. Travel through the Eretz crossing involves a long wait of up to 12 hours, the crossing opens at 4am on a Sunday morning to let them through. Everything is checked, and they can’t take clothes through, so clothing has to be bought (at high expense) in Israel.
The guards at the border can deny entry at will to anyone, whether or not they have a permit. Israeli intelligence often interrogates and threatens the workers, hoping to add them to the network of informers in Gaza.
THE LUCKY ONES
We were told that around 1,500 migrant workers are still detained or missing in Israel. Their families in Gaza were asking for information about them.
We heard that, when Israel declared war, one of the employers of Gazan workers informed the police that the people working for him were terrorists. We saw a video of corpses after the police intervention. The people shot were colleagues of one of the men we spoke to. Here are their names:
Hashim Barawi (killed)
Suliman Al Atar (killed)
Hary Al Masry (location unknown)
Sahel AL Masry
Nabil Al Barrawi (injured)
Talal Warshasha (injured)
The workers intend to use every legal means possible to obtain justice.
NOT WAR BUT EXTERMINATION
The situation these men are in is difficult, but they are distraught about the situation in Gaza and worried about their families. “My son works with the emergency services, Israel bombed his ambulance, the driver was killed and my son is injured.” “My building was bombed, and my wife and kids are now living in a tent.” “I keep phoning my wife, but there is no answer.”
They denounce the lies and hypocrisy of the international community in its support for Israel. Western countries talk about law and democracy, but they respect neither. How can they support this massacre, this lack of humanity?
One of the men sums it up: This is not war, it is extermination.
Despite the atrocious, immoral position of the countries whose passports we hold, only one man didn’t greet us warmly. Hearing we were from European countries, he said he didn’t want to be in the same room as us.
I was totally sincere when I replied that I understood his feelings, that we are in Palestine because of our countries’ responsibility in the destruction of Palestine, because we don’t agree with Europe’s policies and that we would like to do what we can to tell people about what is happening here. If you’ve read this far, please help us in getting the word out and stopping this genocide.
Israeli Army Kills A Palestinian Child In Tulkarem
IMEMC | OCTOBER 14, 2023
On Saturday, Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian child in Zeita town, north of Tulkarem, in the occupied West Bank’s northwestern part.
The Palestinian Health Ministry has confirmed that the soldiers killed Omar Ahmad Abdul-Rahman Asmar, 15, after shooting him with live fire.
The child was among many wounded Palestinians during protests that took place after several Israeli army vehicles invaded the town.
His death brings the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli army fire in Tulkarem on Friday and Saturday to six, in addition to dozens of injuries.
On Saturday dawn, Israeli soldiers killed Mahmoud Shehada, 27, injured three, including one who suffered serious wounds, and abducted six in Jericho, in the northeastern part of the occupied West Bank.
Also at dawn, Israeli soldiers killed a young Palestinian man, Abdul-Rahman Ribhi Al-Ammouri, in a car near Al-Isawiya town junction, northeast of the occupied Palestinian capital Jerusalem, in the West Bank.
On Saturday dawn, as the Israeli army continued to fire hundreds of missiles and shells at homes and buildings in the Gaza Strip, including a busy marker in the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
The Health Ministry has confirmed that the extensive Israeli bombing Saturday has killed 315 Palestinians, including 90 children, and injured 1788, mainly women and children.
It added that 2215 Palestinians, including 724 children and 458 women, have been killed, and 8714 Palestinians, including 2450 children and 1536 women, have been injured as the Israeli onslaught on Gaza entered its eighth day.
On Friday, the soldiers killed fifteen Palestinians, including two children, in several parts of the occupied West Bank Friday.
West Bank death toll surges as Israeli soldiers, settlers carry on attacks
The Cradle | October 13, 2023
Israeli settlers and soldiers have killed thirty-six Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since Saturday, the Palestinian Health Ministry announced on 12 October.
A 24-year-old Palestinian was shot by Israeli forces near Ramallah on Thursday, succumbing to injuries later that evening.
“With the killing of Suleiman Malsa, the toll from the Israeli aggression against our people in the West Bank since last Saturday has now reached 36, with over 650 wounded,” WAFA news agency said, citing the health ministry.
A 17-year-old Palestinian in the town of Qusra near Nablus was shot and killed a day earlier by Israeli settlers under the army’s protection. Several others were killed and injured in the attack.
Settlers also shot and killed a father and son at a funeral on 12 October.
Violence has surged dramatically in the occupied West Bank since the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and Israel’s indiscriminate air raids against Gaza’s civilian population.
Palestinians across the West Bank carried out several protests and marches in solidarity with Gaza. West Bank resistance groups have also stepped up armed confrontation against Israeli troops and settlers, particularly after a call by Hamas for a mass Palestinian uprising in all occupied territory.
Intense clashes between Israeli troops and groups affiliated with Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) have been ongoing since Saturday. Dozens of individuals have also been detained over links to Hamas and its affiliates in the West Bank.
Two Israeli police officers were wounded, one critically, in a shooting attack on a police station in occupied east Jerusalem on Thursday. The attacker was killed. The Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), claimed responsibility for the shooting.
Residents across the West Bank have also reported facing significantly higher levels of violence since Hamas’ surprise operation against Israel on 7 October, reinforcing accusations that Israel employs a policy of collective punishment against Palestinians.
What is ‘Firing Zone 918’ and how Israel uses it to grab more Palestinian land
By Dr Mustafa Fetouri | MEMO | October 5, 2023
Israeli forces injure Palestinian school children in West Bank raid
Press TV | October 2, 2023
The Palestinian Ministry of Education has suspended classes in the village of Burqa due to the injury of a child in a raid by Israeli forces into a school.
Ghassan Daghlas, acting governor of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, said on Monday the decision to close the school was to maintain the safety of students.
Local media reported that Israeli forces also directly fired stun grenades and tear gas canisters toward the Palestinian students inside the school during the raid a day earlier. Dozens of children also suffered from smoke inhalation.
Israeli forces also denied teachers of 27 schools access to classes in Masafer Yatta area, located south of the city of al-Khalil (Hebron). The regime forces placed barriers to block the roads leading to the education centers.
In recent months, Israeli forces have also demolished a number of schools across the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Palestinian Ministry of Education in an earlier statement said the demolition of schools was “a heinous crime.”
“These practices have become a flagrant violation of students’ right to safe and free education.”
Israel’s twisted logic makes the murder of Palestinian children a matter of state policy
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | September 5, 2023
Israel murders Palestinian children as a matter of state policy. This claim can be demonstrated easily and is supported by the latest findings of a Human Rights Watch report. The question is: why?
When the police or army shoot a child anywhere in the world, it can usually be argued, at least in theory, that the killing was an unfortunate and tragic mistake. But when thousands of children are killed and wounded in a systematic, “routine” and comparable method within a relatively short period of time, there has to be something very deliberate about it.
In a recent report — “West Bank: Spike in Israeli Killings of Palestinian Children” — HRW reaches a strong conclusion based on an exhaustive examination of medical data, eyewitness accounts, video footage and field research, the latter pertaining to four specific cases.
One is the case of Mahmoud Al-Sadi, a 17-year-old Palestinian boy from the Jenin Refugee Camp. He was killed last November, 320 metres away from fighting between invading Israeli forces and Jenin resistance fighters. Mahmoud was on his way to school and carried nothing that could be seen, from the soldiers’ point of view, as threatening or suspicious.
The story of the Jenin boy is typical and is repeated often throughout the occupied West Bank, sometimes daily. The predictable outcome, as HRW puts it, is that these killings are followed with “virtually no recourse for accountability”.
As of 22 August, 34 Palestinian children in the West Bank have been killed in 2023, adding yet more tragic numbers to a foreboding year that promises to be the most violent since 2005. This year “already surpasses 2022 annual figures, and the highest figure since 2005,” in terms of casualties, reported Tor Wennesland, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East, during a UN briefing on 21 August.
These statistics, among other factors — including the expansion of illegal Israeli Jewish settlements in the West Bank — “threatens to worsen the plight of the most vulnerable Palestinians,” according to Wennesland.
Those “most vulnerable Palestinians”, however, exist beyond the realm of statistics. When Israeli soldiers killed 2-year-old toddler Mohammed Tamimi on 5 June, the little boy’s name was added to an ever-expanding roll call of shame. The memory of the infant, however, like the memory of all other Palestinian children, is etched into the collective consciousness of all Palestinians. It deepens their pain, but also compels their struggle and their resistance.
For Palestinians, the killing of their children is not a random act of a military that lacks discipline and fears no repercussions. Palestinians know that the Israeli war on children is an intrinsic component of the larger Israeli war on every single one of them.
Of course, Israel does not declare officially that it is targeting Palestinian children on purpose. That would be a public relations disaster. Some Israeli officials in the past, however, have let their guard down, offering a strange and troubling logic.
Palestinian children are “little snakes”, wrote Israeli politician Ayelet Shaked in 2015. In a Facebook post, published in the Washington Post, Shaked called for the killing of “the mothers of the [Palestinian] martyrs.” In doing so, she declared war on all Palestinians. “They should follow their sons,” she wrote, “nothing could be more just.” Shortly afterwards, Shaked rather ironically became Israel’s justice minister.
But not all Israeli officials are candid about the killing of Palestinian children, and even their mothers. Data collected by international rights groups, however, leaves no doubt that the nature of the killings is part of a comprehensive strategy developed by the Israeli military. “In all cases,” recently investigated by HRW, “Israeli forces shot the children’s upper bodies.” This was done without the “issuing of warnings or using common, less lethal measures.”
Specifically, the killing of Palestinian children is a centralised and deliberate Israeli military strategy. The same twisted logic, now applied to the West Bank, has already been used in the besieged Gaza Strip. UN figures show that, in the Israeli war against the Palestinians in Gaza in 2008-9, 333 Palestinian children were killed; other estimates put the figure at 410. In the 2012 Israeli offensive against Gaza, 47 children were killed; in 2014, there were 578 killed; in 2021 it was 66; and in 2022 17 children were killed in the besieged territory by Israeli soldiers.
Between 2018 and 2020, 59 Palestinian children were killed in what was known as the “March of Return” protests that took place at the fence separating Israel from the Gaza Strip. All the children were killed from a distance by Israeli snipers.
When the numbers of dead and wounded children are tallied, they are in the thousands. According to the UN, there were precisely 8,700 Palestinian child casualties between 2015 and 2022.
Even the callous and often dehumanising term “collateral damage” cannot justify such statistics. And although the war on Palestinian children is clearly intentional, protracted and ongoing, not a single Israeli military or government official has ever been held accountable in an international court. Moreover, the UN “List of Shame for Killing Children” has never branded Israel, although other countries have been “named and shamed” for far fewer crimes against children.
As the killing of children is perceived — according to the twisted logic of the likes of Shaked — to be functional for Israel, given the absence of any accountability, the occupation state finds no reason or urgency to end its war on Palestinian children. And with the constant loosening of the rules of military engagement in Israel, and the terrifyingly genocidal language used by its extreme far-right ministers and their massive constituency, more Palestinian children are likely to lose their lives in the near future.
Despite this, the most that UN officials and rights groups seem to be able to do now is to count the alarming number of child casualties. Alas, no number is large enough to dissuade Israel from killing Palestinians, including children.
The problem for Palestinians is not just that of Israel’s violence, but also the lack of international will to hold Israel accountable. Accountability requires unity, decisiveness of will and action. This task should be a priority for all countries that genuinely care about Palestinians and universal human rights. Without such collective action, Palestinian children will continue to be killed in large numbers and in the most brutal ways, a tragedy that will continue to pain, in fact, shame, us all.
West Bank: Jewish settlers vandalise Palestinian school threatened with demolition
Ras al-Tin, a Palestinian Bedouin school located east of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, following an attack by Israeli settlers, on August 13, 2023. (Wafa news agency)
MEMO | August 14, 2023
Jewish settlers stormed a Palestinian school in the central occupied West Bank on Sunday, breaking windows and vandalising fixtures and fittings, Wafa has reported. Ras Al-Tin School to the east of Ramallah is threatened with demolition by the Israeli occupation army.
The school is located in a Palestinian Bedouin community on land belonging to the villages of Kafr Malik, Khirbet Abu Falah and Al-Mughayer. It was built in 2020, and is part of the Palestinian Tahaddi School Group.
According to Wafa, in October 2020 the Israeli authorities decided to demolish the school, on the pretext that it is located in an area under full Israeli control, and construction is prohibited for any reason, even for education purposes.
Jewish settlers also stormed the Tahaddi school in the Wadi Al-Siq Bedouin community on Sunday. They too smashed its windows and vandalised its contents.
There are currently 18 Tahaddi schools in the occupied West Bank built by the Palestinian Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission with international support. They are in so-called Area C, in which Israel prevents construction on the pretext of a lack of building permits, which are almost impossible to obtain.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the settler attacks on the two schools. It described them as part of the “serious escalation of settler attacks and their targeting of Palestinian educational institutions, especially those located in areas classified as ‘C’ that are threatened with seizure. These attacks fall within the framework of the occupation state’s attempts to isolate, Judaise and annex the West Bank, and to fight all forms of the Palestinian national and humanitarian presence in those areas targeted by settlement.”
The ministry said that it holds the Israeli government fully responsible for the results of the settler attacks. “We call upon the US administration, the international community and the relevant UN organisations, particularly UNESCO, to shoulder their responsibilities in providing protection for educational institutions.”
Israel cuts water supply to Palestinians in Hebron
Israeli forces raze four water wells in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, in the southern occupied West Bank [Ihab Alami/ApaImages]
MEMO | July 18, 2023
Israel’s water company Mekorot has this month reduced the water supply to the occupied West Bank cities of Hebron and Bethlehem, causing severe shortages for Palestinians, Quds Press reported yesterday.
Mohammad Al-Jaabari, a Palestinian from Hebron, said he has to wait for days in queues until he gets his turn to get a tank load of water for his house.
“However,” he told Quds Press while looking at the illegal Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba, “we see the settlers play with water, irrigate their trees and home gardens.”
Al-Jaabari said: “This is unfair, but who can deter the Israeli occupation in order to stop its unfair distribution of water?”
Hebron’s Deputy Mayor, Asmaa Al-Sharabati, said: “The Israeli occupation continues practicing its control of natural resources. This complicates the water problem.”
She said that the amount of water being provided to Hebron each day is “far less than the needs of residents,” adding that some areas that used to receive water once every 18 days are not sent supplies every 28 days. This too during the summer heat.
“We do not have any roles in the water supplies,” she told Quds Press. “All we have is to receive water from the Israeli company and ensure fair distribution among the Palestinian residents of the city.”
Al-Sharabati said everyone needs 100 litres of water a day, and 30 litres during emergencies. “A Palestinian in Hebron receives far less than 30 litres a day,” she said.
“The water crisis is political,” she stressed.
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From the Archives
A short history of British torture
ICC | December 2005
When the House of Commons was debating how much to increase the time limit for detention without trial the question of torture came up. Officially this was limited to the nice considerations of whether it was all right to send people to places where torture is used and whether Britain can use information collected by the use of torture in other countries. This discussion gave an impression of democratic Britain as the home of civilised behaviour where the very idea of torture is repugnant to our legislators – unlike, say, the US with its secret CIA jails… In reality, the British state has a long history of using and developing a whole range of torture techniques. … continue
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