EMBOLDENED by the inauguration of President Trump, and awaiting his decision to go ahead with moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Israeli forces in occupied Palestine have stepped up their campaign of house demolitions, and raids and arrests by the Israeli army.
sraeli forces on Wednesday detained at least 34 Palestinians, including a 12 and 17-year-old, during predawn military raids throughout the occupied West Bank. Israeli forces are now carrying out detention raids across the occupied Palestinian territory on a nightly basis, while the UN has recorded an average of 95 raids a week in the West Bank in 2016.
According to prisoners’ rights group Addameer, 7,000 Palestinians are now detained in Israeli prisons as of October 2016. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have raided the village of Sair. The wife of Palestinian journalist and hunger striker Muhammad al-Qiq was delivered an interrogation summons from Israeli intelligence during the raid, according to locals. Al-Qiq was redetained by Israeli forces earlier this month after participating in a protest in Bethlehem city held to demand the release of bodies of slain Palestinians held in Israeli custody.
In the Nur Shams refugee camp in the northern district of Tulkarem, Israeli forces detained six Palestinians, identified by PPS as Ali Khayri Abu Salah, Raji Jamal Ghreifi, Ramez Abed al-Hakim Elayyan, Muhammad Adib Ghreifi, Muhammad Ahmad al-Azzeh and Ali Amin Abu al-Rub.
Also on Wednesday morning, Israeli troops crossed the border fence with the Gaza Strip into Palestinian lands east of Rafah in southern Gaza. Witnesses said that four Israeli bulldozers levelled lands near the border fence east of Rafah as military aircraft hovered overhead during the incident.
Separately, Israeli naval forces fired gunshots at Palestinian fishing boats off the coast of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip. No injuries have been reported. Earlier on Tuesday night, Israeli artillery targeted a military post in an open area between al-Bureij and al-Maghazi refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip.
Israeli military incursions inside the besieged Gaza Strip and near the ‘buffer zone,’ which lies on both land and sea sides of Gaza, have long been a near-daily occurrence. Palestinians who work near the ‘buffer zone’ often come under fire from Israeli military forces, as the authorities have not made clear the precise area of the designated zone.
In the Jordan Valley, the Israeli army forced out dozens of Palestinians from their homes in the village of Khirbet al-Kurzaliya on Tuesday morning to carry out military training exercises, a day after dozens of structures were demolished in the area.
Bilal Abd al-Hadi, the deputy mayor of Aqraba, a town located west of Khirbet al-Kurzaliya, reported that Israeli troops started military drills with live ammunition in the village early on Tuesday morning after evacuating residents.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman approved plans for the construction of 2,500 housing units in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, the Israeli media reported.
According to The Times of Israel, the vast majority of the new housing will be built in the settlement blocs of Ariel, Etzion, and Maale Adumim – the latter is the focus of a Knesset bill seeking to annex it to Israel. ‘We’re building, and will continue to build,’ Netanyahu reportedly said after the announcement.
The whole of Occupied Palestine is smouldering under the Israeli occupation. The masses are awaiting the announcement by Trump that the US embassy will be removed to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv as the signal for an enormous eruption of the Third Intifada by the Palestinian masses who are determined to fight for their homes and land.
This eruption must have the full support of the trade unions in the UK and the US who must see to it that the Palestinian masses receive everything that they require to win their just and historic struggle, and to establish their state with Jerusalem as its capital, in which Muslims, Jews and Christians can live side by side in peace.
