ISRAELI military forces have shot dead a Palestinian woman near the city of Bethlehem in the southern part of the occupied West Bank, amid an escalation of violence across the Palestinian territories.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said on Sunday that Israeli forces opened fire on the woman – identified as Ghada Ibrahim Sabatien – while she was crossing a military checkpoint near the village of Husan, west of
Bethlehem.
The victim, aged in her 40s, died in hospital in the West Bank city of Beit Jala where she was taken after suffering massive blood loss from a torn artery.
The Israeli military claimed that its troops fired warning shots into the air when the woman approached them, before they ‘fired towards the suspect’s lower body.’
The woman, a widowed mother of six, was then transferred to the Red Crescent for treatment, the Israeli military said, adding that it was investigating the incident.
This latest development came after Israeli occupation forces launched a new wave of brutal raids and arrests against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin earlier the same day, following a shooting operation by a young Palestinian in a crowded entertainment area of Tel Aviv.
On Thursday evening, a Palestinian youth, identified as Ra’ad Fathi Hazem, entered a pub on a crowded main street of Tel Aviv and began shooting, killing three Israelis and wounding more than a dozen others.
The 28-year-old, a resident of the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, was killed by Israeli forces in a pre-dawn firefight near a mosque on the first Friday of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
Palestinian resistance groups hailed the ‘heroic operation’ as a ‘natural and legitimate response to the escalation of the occupation’s crimes.’
Palestinians have ramped up retaliatory attacks against Israeli forces in recent weeks, carrying out a series of operations that have killed at least 11 Israelis since March 22.
Over the same period, at least 10 Palestinians have been killed, including the resistance fighters that carried out the attacks.
The occupying regime has, since the start of Ramadan, scaled up its crackdown on Palestinians who gather for Iftar, a meal served at the end of the fasting day during the holy month. Israel has also deployed a large number of its forces to disperse the worshippers.
The Israeli violence, repeated on a daily basis, has led to fierce clashes between Israelis and Palestinians across the occupied territories.
Meanwhile, eleven pro-Israel US Republican senators, led by Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, are pushing the Biden administration to expedite pending weapons sales to the Israeli regime prior to Washington’s potential return to the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran.
In an official letter last Thursday, the hawkish senators called on the administration ‘to take immediate action to provide Israel with the military capabilities it needs to defend itself from Iran’ by rushing delivery of KC-46 refuelling tanker aircraft, remaining F-35 and F-15 fighter jets, and CH-53K helicopters, the UK-based Al-Monitor reported on Saturday.
The lawmakers, who regularly receive contributions and luxury tours of occupied Palestine from the powerful Israeli lobby groups in the US, further insisted that the administration should continue to ‘ensure that Israel retains adequate stockpiles of US-made precision guided munitions’ and adequate air defence capabilities.
According to the report, the Israeli military has sought to replace its ageing fleet of aerial refuelling tankers in a bid to extend its strike range, because Israel lacks the military capability to carry out its repeated threats to strike Iranian nuclear sites ‘without significant US support’.
The Tel Aviv regime, which is widely believed to possess hundreds of nuclear warheads and continues to reject any international inspection of its nuclear facilities, has falsely alleged that Iran’s civilian nuclear programme – which has operates under the close scrutiny of international inspectors – is aimed at producing weapons.
The Islamic Republic has strongly dismissed the Israeli regime’s claims and has mocked its threats to strike its nuclear facilities, vowing to totally wipe out Israel if it attempts any military action against Iran.
The Israeli regime finalised more than $3 billion in deals last year with Lockheed-Martin and Sikorsky for new KC-46A mid-air refuelling tankers and CH-53 heavy-lift helicopters, noting that its military intends to ‘adapt its capabilities to Iran’s advances in nuclear enrichment as well as ballistic missile, cruise missile and drone-laden conventional weapons.’
The report further reveals that, despite the Israeli regime’s public opposition to the US return to the nuclear deal with Iran, Tel Aviv’s military officials increasingly view it as a potential opportunity to upgrade their regime’s ‘offensive and defensive capabilities’ before Iran resumes its nuclear enrichment programme.
Also according to the report, there are growing concerns – among mostly Republican lawmakers – in Washington that a return to the Iran nuclear agreement will increase the risks to occupying US forces and allies in the region.
They point out that Iranian authorities have rejected US insistence that Tehran’s ballistic missile programme and its persisting influence in the region must be included in the current negotiations in Vienna.
- The secretary general of Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah has sharply criticised the United States for exercising double standards on human rights.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Washington has remained silent on decades of Israeli atrocities against Palestine as well as the horrendous criminal acts that the Saudi-led coalition is perpetrating in war-torn Yemen.
‘While US officials accuse Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine, they turn a blind eye to the atrocities committed against civilians in all their wars.
‘The United States has carried out crimes worldwide, from Japan to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Somalia. US warplanes have bombed Afghan weddings, turning them into funerals,’ Nasrallah said in a televised speech broadcast live from Beirut last Tuesday evening.
He added: ‘What can Americans say about the massacres being perpetrated by Zionists in Palestine and Israel’s war crimes? What can they say about the siege of the Gaza Strip? What can they say about the massacres of the Saudi-American aggression in Yemen? What can they say about the blockade of Yemen?’
The Hezbollah chief said thousands of trials should be held to bring American and European military officials to justice for crimes committed in Algeria, Libya and elsewhere in the world.
He also lambasted the international community’s apathy towards last Friday’s attack on a Shia mosque in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar, which killed at least 61 people and injured another 196, stating that the bombers who carried out the attack were ‘US creations and instructed to play out the scenario’.
He also warned that the Russia-Ukraine conflict will have repercussions that will be very dangerous for the whole world.
‘Trusting Americans translates into stupidity, foolishness and ignorance,’ Nasrallah said, adding: ‘Ukrainians have been let down by those who they counted on, and they have started to announce their readiness for discussions with Moscow
‘The treatment of the recent wave of refugees from Ukraine exposes discrimination based on religion, race, and colour. Is this Western civilisation?’
The Hezbollah secretary general stressed that subjugation to US dictates will not rescue Lebanon, but will rather increase its woes. ‘The US demands do not stop at any limit,’ he warned.
Nasrallah criticised Lebanon voting against Russia’s military operations in Ukraine at the United Nations General Assembly, when it could have chosen to abstain.
‘Lebanese representatives should have told Americans that Lebanese people are not their slaves. This is what sovereignty calls for.
‘The Lebanese Foreign Ministry’s condemnation of Russian military operations in Ukraine had also been demanded and drafted by the US embassy in Beirut,’ the Hezbollah head said.
‘Where is the dissociation policy that the Lebanese government calls for? Why did neutrality advocates remain silent regarding the foreign ministry’s statement?’ he demanded.
He said the Ukraine conflict is a striking example of the United States’ habit of abandoning its own allies.
‘The remarks about neutrality are an excuse to evade responsibilities regarding the Palestinian cause and wars on Syria and Yemen. What happened puts an end to the great lie that Hezbollah is practising hegemony over the Lebanese state’s decisions,’ he pointed out.
‘What have Lebanese officials obtained from Americans who are only offering false promises?
‘The US State Department has not yet given Egypt and Jordan documents exempting them from the Caesar law if natural gas is transferred from Syria into Lebanon,’ he pointed out.
Lebanon’s public transportation and labour unions have also started a nationwide general strike against the dire economic conditions in the Mediterranean
country.
‘A year and a half ago, a Russian company offered to construct an oil refinery, costing approximately two billion dollars, Nasrallah said. ‘The facility would have refined crude oil into various derivatives. Lebanon could then have exported these oil derivatives.
‘But The Americans prevented Lebanon from accepting the Russian offer, without presenting an alternative.’
The Hezbollah secretary general finally called on Lebanese President Michel Aoun and the Council of Ministers to take up the Russian offer in order to overcome the crippling fuel shortages in the country.
