Sunday, March 26, 2023

Palestinians accuse settlers of West Bank arson, Israel sees electrical fire


Aftermath of an attack on a Palestinian house, near Ramallah


Sun, March 26, 2023 
By Ali Sawafta

SINJEL, West Bank (Reuters) - The Palestinian Foreign Ministry accused "Jewish terrorist elements" of an arson attack against a family home in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, but Israeli police said the fire appeared to have been an accident.

West Bank tensions have been running high as Palestinians mark the Muslim holy month of Ramadan amid a surge of violence, including a gun attack on Saturday in which two Israeli soldiers were wounded and almost nightly arrest raids by the Israeli army.

No one was hurt in the predawn fire in Sinjel. Ahmed Awashreh, the owner of the home that was badly damaged, said he was woken by the sound of a window smashing and managed to get his four children and wife out before the flames spread.

"It was so close. I'm happy I saved my family," he said.

A Sinjel resident who requested anonymity told Reuters he saw cars whose occupants he recognised as Jewish settlers nearby minutes before the incident.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry blamed the incident on "Jewish terrorist elements" but Israeli police, who sent investigators to the scene, said in a statement that the fire "was mostly likely caused due to a short circuit and not a deliberate ignition".

Most countries deem the settlements, which take up land Palestinians seek for a state, illegal. Israeli disputes this.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine militant group claimed Saturday night's drive-by shooting in Huwara, 13 km (8 miles) from Sinjel, that wounded two soldiers. It was the third time in a month that Israelis had been fired upon there.

In a Feb. 26 attack, a gunman from the Hamas militant group killed two brothers from a nearby Jewish settlement as they sat in a car. That sparked a revenge rampage by settlers in which a Palestinian was killed and properties torched.

Over the past year, Israeli forces have made thousands of arrests in the West Bank and killed more than 250 Palestinians, including fighters and civilians, while more than 40 Israelis and three Ukrainians have died in Palestinian attacks.

In overnight West Bank raids, Israeli forces arrested three suspected militants, the army said on Sunday.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Palestinian killed in Israeli military raid in West Bank


This is a locator map of Israel and the Palestinian Territories. 

Thu, March 23, 2023 

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli security forces killed a Palestinian militant during a raid in the northern West Bank on Thursday, Palestinian health officials said, the latest escalation of violence in what has been the deadliest start of a year for Palestinians in the occupied territory in more than two decades.

Israeli forces stormed into the northern city of Tulkarem, home to an emerging militant group with ties to the armed offshoot of the nationalist Fatah party. The Palestinian Health Ministry said that 25-year-old Amir Abu Khadija was shot multiple times in the head and legs. The Tulkarem branch of Fatah’s Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades claimed Abu Khadija as its leader.

The Israeli military said Abu Khadija was wanted for recent shooting attacks on Israeli settlements and security forces. Troops raided his hideout apartment in Tulkarem and shot and killed Abu Khadija when he drew his gun, the military said, adding that the army confiscated an M-16 assault rifle and the car he allegedly used to carry out drive-by shooting attacks. Security forces said they also arrested another member of the militant group.

The militant group said Abu Khadija died in an “armed clash” with Israeli forces. Images of his blood-soaked body and his trashed apartment circulated online, as angry Palestinians mourned what they described as the first “martyr” of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which began Thursday in the Mideast.

This year, as in years past, the Muslim fasting month has spurred concerns of a surge in violence in the contested city of Jerusalem. Ramadan overlaps with the Jewish holiday of Passover in early April, raising the possibility of friction as sacred sites in Jerusalem’s Old City host an unusually large influx of worshippers and visitors. The scared compound housing the Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third-holiest site in Islam. Known to Jews as the Temple Mount, it's also the holiest in Judaism.

Adding to tensions as Ramadan begins are the conditions of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

A group representing Palestinian prisoners called this week for a mass hunger strike of at least 2,000 inmates in protest of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's toughening of prison measures. The rules at issue include showers limited to four minutes, bakeries shut down for prisoners and restricted exercise time and family visits, according to prisoner rights groups.

But late Wednesday just before Ramadan, the prisoners backed down from the protest, claiming a victory in negotiations after they said Ben-Gvir accepted their demands. Ben-Gvir denied striking any deal with prisoners, insisting there had been no change in prison conditions and threatening those who go on hunger strike with further punishment.

While Israel considers Palestinian prisoners to be terrorists, they are widely seen as heroes in Palestinian society for resisting an Israeli military occupation that is now in its 56th year.

The escalating violence in the West Bank under Israel's most right-wing government in history has angered regional Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which diplomatically recognized Israel in 2020. So far this year, over 85 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank, according to a tally by The Associated Press, about half of them affiliated with militant groups. Palestinian attacks against Israelis have killed 15 people, all but one of them civilians.

Late Wednesday, the Gulf Cooperation Council denounced what it called “repeated Israeli violations against the Palestinian people” in a statement issued on behalf of the six-nation bloc’s foreign ministers. The ministers also condemned the new Israeli government's expansion of settlements in the West Bank and called again for negotiations leading to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war.

The GCC is a regional bloc including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Saudi Arabia and the head of the GCC also both condemned an Israeli decision earlier this week to repeal a 2005 act that saw four Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank dismantled. The Saudi Foreign Ministry called the decision “a flagrant violation of all international laws” that “contributes to undermining regional and international peace efforts.”

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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.


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