AT least four Israeli soldiers have been injured after an improvised explosive device was hurled at a military post in the central part of the West Bank.
The explosives were thrown at a post near the settlement of Halamish and the adjacent Palestinian town of Nabi Saleh, located 20 kilometres (12.4 miles) northwest of Ramallah, late on Sunday, according to a statement by the Israeli army.
The four soldiers were lightly injured and treated at the scene, but the army statement said that one of them was taken later to the Tel Hashomer Hospital in Ramat Gan for further medical treatment after sustaining injuries from shrapnel.
The Israeli military launched a manhunt for the suspects – who fled the scene – and closed the main entrance to Nabi Saleh.
This comes amid escalating tensions across the occupied territories as the Israeli military presses on with its clampdown and repressive measures.
‘The escalation of resistance operations today in the West Bank, the latest of which was recently in Ramallah, confirms that our people in the West Bank have launched a new stage in confronting the Occupation and confronting its crimes against our people and the al-Aqsa Mosque, and that the confrontations and operations will expand and move to various regions,’ Abd al-Latif al-Qanou, a spokesman for Hamas resistance movement, said in reaction to the incident.
Just hours earlier, at least seven Israeli settlers and soldiers were injured after armed attackers opened fire on a bus in the north of the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli military said that shots were fired at the bus which was carrying Israeli soldiers on a major highway in the Jordan Valley near the settlement of Hamra.
One soldier was seriously injured and another five plus the bus’s civilian driver were hurt.
The seriously wounded soldier and the bus driver were reportedly taken to Rambam Hospital in Haifa, with gunshot injuries.
The other five were slightly hurt by glass fragments.
Israeli forces continue their near-daily raid-and-arrest operations in various parts of the West Bank, wounding or killing Palestinians.
Such raids are carried out while Israeli settlers also conduct acts of violence against Palestinians and their property.
Settler violence is rampant in the occupied Palestinian territories. The acts of violence and vandalism, known as ‘price tag attacks’, which are committed by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property, have risen in recent years.
However, Israeli authorities rarely prosecute Israeli settlers for their assaults on Palestinians and their property and the vast majority of the files are closed due to deliberate police failure to investigate properly.
A new report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has revealed Israeli brutality against Palestinians throughout the occupied territory.
Many Palestinians have also sustained injuries or been killed in incidents due to allegations that they attempted stabbing or car-ramming attacks against Israeli settlers and forces.
As many as 74 Palestinians, including 37 children, have been killed so far this year, many as a result of the use of lethal force by the Israeli authorities in a manner described by the OCHA as a violation of international human rights law.
- Amid Washington’s continued and ferocious campaign to plunder Syria’s energy resources, the United States military has reportedly used dozens of tanker trucks to smuggle crude oil out of the war-ravaged country’s northeastern province of Hasakah to the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.
Syria’s official news agency SANA, citing local sources in al-Ya’rubiyah town, reported that a convoy of 31 US military trucks, including tankers and flatbed trucks carrying battle tanks, left Syria through the al-Waleed border crossing on Monday, and headed for the Iraqi territories.
The sources added that three four-wheel-drive vehicles belonging to the American occupation forces escorted the convoy as it entered Iraqi territory and drove towards US military bases in northern Iraq.
The US military has, for a long time, stationed its forces and equipment in northeastern Syria, with the Pentagon claiming that the deployment is aimed at preventing the oilfields in the area from falling into the hands of Daesh terrorists.
Damascus, however, maintains the deployment is meant to plunder the country’s natural resources.
Former US president Donald Trump admitted on several occasions that American forces were in Syria for its oil wealth.
Iran’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations has slammed the US occupation forces’ presence in northeastern Syria.
And on August 30, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman denounced the illegal presence of US military forces in Syria, saying Washington’s continued looting of the war-torn country’s energy and mineral resources has only exacerbated the suffering of the Syrian people.
‘It is appalling to see the sheer scale of US plundering in Syria, which has been going on as the country tries to emerge from a crisis that has dragged on for over a decade and a grave humanitarian crisis facing its people,’ Zhao Lijian said at a regular press conference in Beijing.
‘There is no greater injustice than the world’s wealthiest country robbing one of the poorest,’ he added.
Syria says the US occupation has cost it over $107 billion in oil and gas sector losses.
‘US troops control Syria’s oil, natural gas and other natural resources. They continue to occupy Syria’s main oil fields and have plundered more than 80% of the country’s oil products.
‘They have smuggled and burned Syria’s grain stocks, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis there,’ Zhao stressed.
‘The US should thoroughly reflect on its war-related crimes, stop its illegal military presence and operations in Syria, lift unilateral sanctions on Syria, and stop stealing oil and grain from Syria.
‘The US needs to return to the Syrian people the freedom, wealth and dignity that are rightfully theirs,’ the Chinese diplomat said.
- Iran’s top general has condemned the presence of the occupying Israeli regime in the region as illegitimate, saying it only foments insecurity for regional countries.
Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Baqeri, made the remarks on Monday while unveiling the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy’s new domestically-developed patrol combat vessel.
The vessel has been named after the country’s top anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated by a United States drone strike in January 2020.
‘The presence of Israel in the region is illegitimate. It not only does nothing to help regional security, but also foments insecurity,’ Iran’s top general said, adding:
‘Some regional countries have posed threats to the region through normalisation of their relations with Israel. The Zionist regime joining the US Army’s terrorist CENTCOM (US Central Command) also faces us with certain threats. Therefore, we cannot tolerate the regime’s presence in the Persian Gulf.
Baqeri went on: ‘In addition to voicing our protest through our foreign policy channels, we declare that we will not tolerate this process of espionage and creation of threat and will never back down on the rights of the Iranian nation as well as the security of our waters and land.’
The top general said the security of the Persian Gulf region must be established by the regional countries themselves, and there is no need for the presence of foreign forces in the international waterway.
Iranian officials have repeatedly described Israel’s destabilising activities as the main source of insecurity in the region, and warning regional countries about the perils of allowing Tel Aviv to establish a foothold in the region.
Commander of the IRGC Navy, Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri, said last month that any cooperation with the Israeli regime poses a threat to and disrupts security in the Persian Gulf region.
‘We warn any country that prepares the ground for intervention and presence of arrogant powers in the region and gives them a base, space and soil to form a military coalition against regional nations, that, firstly, they will pay the heaviest price for their unfriendly and provocative behaviour and, secondly, the stable and secure situation of the region will pay a price for that.’
Elsewhere in his remarks, Baqeri touched upon the issue of the United States Navy’s ‘astray’ unmanned surface vessels (USVs) in the regional waters, which have been disrupting naval security wherever they are.
‘Our reports indicate that our enemies are trying to make up for their troop drawdown in the region by creating new (military) units.
‘Reports received by us indicate that they are trying to jeopardise naval security through the launch of small surveillance units.’
Iran’s Nour News website, which is close to the country’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), has shed light on the circumstances surrounding last week’s brief seizure by Iranian naval forces of a US unmanned surface vessel which was stranded in the Persian Gulf, saying the measure had been taken to prevent possible maritime incidents and safeguard shipping lanes.
Nour News reported that the IRGC naval forces took ‘timely action’ earlier in the day to seize the US vessel, whose ‘navigational system had failed,’ and began towing it with the aim of supporting safe and secure shipping in the Persian Gulf.
A few days later, the Iranian Navy detailed seizing two American maritime drones in the Red Sea also to prevent naval accidents in the international shipping lane.
The Navy’s Jamaran destroyer encountered the ‘data collecting’ vessels during a routine operation aimed at securing shipping routes and confronting piracy and maritime terrorism, the Navy said in a statement last Thursday.
