Israeli bulldozers raze vast area of agricultural land in Al-Khalil

[ 02/08/2010 - 09:56 PM ]

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)--

Israeli occupation forces bulldozers under military protection demolished the agricultural land of Al-Jaber family in Al-Baq'ah area, east of Al-Khalil city.

Palestinian local sources said that the bulldozers destroyed more than 50 dunums of land planted with vegetables belonging to the citizen Jaber in addition to the irrigation network.

The sources added that the Israeli troops who escorted the excavators physically assaulted the land owner along with his wife, son, and brother-in-law as they were trying to defend their property.

The troops kidnapped the son and the brother-in-law and took them to an unknown destination, according to the sources.

In another incident, six Palestinians including two children were moderately wounded on Sunday when an Israeli armored vehicle rammed the car they were traveling in near Al-Ramadin area, south of Al-Khalil.

Eyewitnesses said that the six Palestinian passengers were on their way to Al-Ramadin area when all of a sudden, an Israeli police car reinforced with two other armored vehicles chased and surrounded their car.

They added that one of the armored vehicles deliberately hit the civilian car making it rolling over.

Medical sources at the Ahli hospital in Al-Khalil said that all the wounded civilians, including a mother with her two children, were admitted to the hospital.

In another context, the office of religious affairs in Al-Khalil reported that the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) prevented Muslims from performing adhan (calling for prayers) at the Ibrahimi Mosque on 54 occasions during the month of July.

The office condemned the IOA for banning the Palestinians from performing adhan at the pretext that the adhan disturbs the Israeli settlers and spoils their religious occasions.

It affirmed that the IOA constantly pursues this policy in order to prevent the Palestinians from performing their payers in the Mosque, especially after Israel decided to annex the Mosque to the Jewish heritage list.

In a separate incident, the Hebrew radio said that the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) in coordination with Mahmoud Abbas's security militias carried out at dawn Monday a number of raids in different West Bank areas and kidnapped 11 Palestinians, without mentioning the names of the detainees or where exactly these raids took place.

ILA uproots hundreds of olive trees

[ 02/08/2010 - 10:44 AM ]

NAZARETH, (PIC)--

Hundreds of olive trees belonging to Palestinians in the Zulfa and Moshairefa regions in 1948-occupied Rouha area were uprooted by staff from the so-called “Israeli land administration” (ILA), accompanied by police and military forces.

According to ILA official Eido Reiss, the trees will be handed over and distributed to "a military camp in central Israel".

He claimed that the trees were planted and located on “state property”, adding that the people’s court of the city of Hadera decided a short time ago to uproot the trees and hand them over to the administration.

“The land has belonged to our family for more than 45 years,” the land’s owner, Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Jabareen, said. “We were surprised by the military and police forces raid on the land to escort the ILA employees to uproot the olive trees, and we fear that this signals confiscation of more Arab lands in the region.”