At least 50 youth kidnapped in Jayous by Sunset

Wednesday February 18, 2009 22:06 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

The Israeli occupation army withdrew from Jayous village, near the northern West Bank City of Qalqilia on Wednesday evening after conducting a morning invasion. By Sunset, at least 50 youth from the village were kidnapped and were moved to Huwwara military camp, near Nablus.

Local sources reported that hundreds of youths were interrogated at a makeshift interrogation chamber at a school in the village. The army also occupied at least 10 homes in the village and erected Israeli flags on top of them.

Some of the youths have been forcibly masked during interrogation and one of them collapsed after suffering a psychological breakdown during interrogation, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) reported.

The PSC added that most of the kidnapped youth are university students who protested against the Israeli invasion.

The Israeli occupation army placed the village under curfew baring the residents from leaving their homes and isolated the village from its surrounding areas after placing dirt mounds and concrete blocks on its entrances.

Nearly 85% of the villagers in Jayous are farmers, they have livestock and were worried that if their cows and sheep remain without care, they would succumb to sickness causing the farmers to lose their main source of income, the PSC added.

 It is worth mentioning that many villagers were outside their village before the army invaded it and were unable to return to their homes as the army sealed it and imposed curfew.

 The village is one of many Palestinian villages that are active in nonviolent resistance against the Israeli Annexation Wall built on Palestinian lands.

The demonstrations in Jayous are staged in protest to the re-routing of the Annexation Wall on the village land, while the army is uprooting trees and bulldozing lands. The rerouting will cause the villagers to lose 277 Dunams as they will be razed to enable the rerouting of the Annexation Wall.

When completed, the rerouting will also lead to the confiscation of 5.585 Dunams of farmlands.

 The new route of the Wall is in the northern part of Jayous, and replaces a 2.4 km stretch with a 4.9 km stretch that is 2 km closer to the Green Line but it still encroaches 4 km inside the West Bank.

The army already uprooted 6000 Dunams, and hundreds of trees will be uprooted if the army implements the reroute.

The new path will not have access gates to the villages’ lands, and the farmers will be completely cut off from their orchards.

Jayous is the first village that carried regular and large-scale protests against the construction of the Annexation Wall. The non-violent protests carried out by Palestinian, Israeli and International peace activists, spread to other villages such as Ni’lin, Bil’in and Al Ma’sara.

Israeli military kidnaps 14 civilians from northern West Bank village

Ghassan Bannoura, IMEMC News,Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:43:18

At least 14 Palestinian civilians were kidnapped by the Israeli military during a morning invasion on Wednesday, targeting the village of Jayous, located near the northern West Bank city of Qalqilia.

Israeli troops stormed the village early morning and imposed a total closure on the village, then conducted a large-scale house to house search, local sources reported.  

During the search, residents reported that Israeli soldiers raised Israeli flags on top of their homes and took photos of the homes.  Sources added that Israeli troops took the 14 men away to an unknown location.