A PALESTINIAN fisherman was injured and detained along with four others by Israeli naval troops who attacked them on Tuesday off the coast of Gaza.
Israeli gunboats attacked the fishermen as they were sailing within six nautical miles from the coast of Gaza City, injuring at least one of them before four other fishermen and he were detained. The five fishermen were identified as Rajab Abu Reyala, Khaled Abu Reyala, Hasan Meqdad, Mohammad Ibrahim Meqdad, and Mohammad Bashir Abu Reyala.
The navy also stole two fishing boats and took the detained fishermen to an unknown destination. The Israeli navy targets Gaza fishermen almost on a daily basis, in a blatant breach of a ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and armed Palestinian groups in August 2014, following 51 days of bloody aggression on the Gaza Strip, which claimed the lives of over 2,200 Palestinians, mostly civilians.
According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), all Israeli attacks on Palestinian fishermen have taken place within the distance of six nautical miles, which it said ‘proves that Israeli forces’ policies aim to tighten restrictions on the Gaza Strip’s fishermen and their livelihoods’.
Israeli naval boats also opened machine gunfire on Palestinian farmers from offshore Gaza City. The navy soldiers opened heavy machine gunfire on Palestinian fishermen’s boats offshore from the al-Sudaniya area to the northwest of Gaza City, causing damage to at least one boat.
Other Israeli navy forces targeted Palestinian fishermen’s boats with a barrage of gunfire offshore from the Deir al-Balah area, in the central Gaza Strip. All attacks took place within the six-nautical miles permitted fishing zone. No injuries were reported among the fishermen, who were forced to return to shore for fear of being detained, injured, or killed.
While Israeli authorities last month expanded the fishing zone designated for Palestinian fishermen to nine nautical miles in the southern Gaza Strip, and retained the six mile zone in the north, fishermen regularly report detentions, live fire, and boat confiscation within these six miles.
Meanwhile, six Israeli military vehicles, including four armoured tanks and two bulldozers, infiltrated Gaza borders and went nearly 100 miles into Palestinian-owned agricultural land to the north of Beit Lahya, razing the land and randomly firing live ammunition and smoke bombs during the incursion.
Since 2005, Israel unilaterally imposed a 300-metre-wide buffer zone into the border with Gaza, sharply affecting the livelihood of tens of thousands of Gaza farmers, who rely heavily on agriculture to provide for their families.
As of 2010, UN-OCHA estimated that 35 per cent of Gaza’s agricultural land is located in restricted-access areas, affecting the lives and livelihoods of approximately 113,000 people. Farmers in farmland on the borders say their situation has only worsened since the last war ended in summer 2014, pointing to the Israeli military’s frequent incursions into their land and its practice of firing live ammunition at farmers who enter the ‘buffer zone’ between Gaza and Israel.
Also early on Tuesday Israeli forces detained eight Palestinians from a number of West Bank districts, bringing the total number of detainees to 14, said Palestine Prisoner’s Society. Forces detained three Palestinians during a raid into Biddu town, northwest of Jerusalem. They were identified as Muhammad Mansour, 22, his brother, Ibrahim, 19, and kin, Muhammad, 22.
To the south of Jerusalem, in Bethlehem district, two Palestinians identified as Dhiyaa’ al-Badan, 16, and Bassam al-Badan, 20, were detained. In the northern West Bank, forces detained three Palestinians from the northern West Bank districts of Nablus and Salfit. The detainees were identified as Farid Abu Dhuher, Ahmad Salah, and Omar al-Abbushi, 19.
Abu Dhuher was detained while crossing al-Karama (Allenby) border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan and Salah was detained in the vicinity of Huwwara military checkpoint. Israeli forces early on Tuesday also detained six Palestinians from Hebron and Tulkarem districts, said the Palestine Prisoner’s Society.
Forces detained three Palestinians after storming and ransacking their family houses from the southern West Bank district of Hebron. The detainees were identified as Awad Qar’ish, 23, from Yatta town, Hudhayfa Ghneimat, 23, from Surif town, and Ayoub Abu-Awad, 35, from al-Fawwar refugee camp.
Meanwhile, forces detained three Palestinians during a dawn raid into Dhanaba, east of Tulkarem in the northern West Bank. The detainees were identified as Moumen Abdullah, 21, Hani Suwan, 20, whose brother Loai is sentenced to 14 years in Israeli detention, and Muhammad Irmilat, 20.
Also on Tuesday illegal Israeli settlers resumed their provocative tours into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, provoking tension with Palestinian worshippers, according to local sources. Witnesses said that dozens of Israeli settlers accompanied by a police escort broke into the holy site and performed rituals and Talmudic prayers.
The Israeli incursion in al-Aqsa, Islam’s third holiest place, provoked tension with Palestinian worshippers, who chanted religious slogans to protest at the settlers’ entry. Last year, tension ran high throughout the West Bank, including Jerusalem, against the backdrop of Israel’s repeated assaults on the mosque, including its unilateral enforcement of a temporal division between Muslims and Jews.
Prior to the unrest in October 2015, the Euro Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor pointed out, in a report, that Israeli incitement and violations against Arabs in Jerusalem had increased dramatically in 2015. The report, titled ‘Fire under the Ashes: Provoking Muslims in Jerusalem’, warned that Israeli incitement against Muslims could trigger a conflict that would likely result in disastrous consequences.
‘Among the provocative acts documented by Euro-Med researchers against Palestinians in Jerusalem were performance of Talmudic prayers near Muslim worshippers, beating, throwing rubbish, cursing, death threats and preventing worshippers from reaching the mosque,’ the report said.
More than 200 Palestinians have been killed and over 16,000 others injured by Israeli fire since early October 2015. An Israeli district court in Jerusalem rejected an appeal on Tuesday by a Palestinian family that was ordered to evacuate their house in the Saadiyya neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City to make room for Jewish housing managed by the right-wing settler organisation ‘Ateret Cohanim’.
The lawyer for the Qirrish family, Muhannad Jubara, said that the Palestinian owners rented the house to the Qirrish family. However in 1986, the Palestinian owners surreptitiously sold the property to the Israeli settler group Ateret Cohanim. According to Jubara, the family are under ‘protected status,’ which refers to certain Palestinians in East Jerusalem that held rental agreements with the Jordanian government before 1967 when Israel occupied the Palestinian territory.
The leaseholder is considered a protected tenant for three generations. However, when the last family member of the third generation dies, the family loses the status, Jubara said. The Palestinian owners of the property attempted to evict the Qirrish family in 1988 following the transference of the property to Jewish ownership, but lost the case due to the family’s protected status. However, ten years later, the Israeli pro-settler organisation Ateret Cohanim filed a case against the family.
In 2009, the last living member of the third generation in the Qirrish family died, stripping them of their protected status, Jubara added. Mazin Qirrish said that in July 2010 Israeli settlers seized parts of the house. Following the settler takeover, an Israeli court ruled that the family must evacuate the property completely.
The eviction order was reportedly approved by both the Jerusalem district court and Israel’s Supreme Court. Ateret Cohanim is an Israeli pro-settlement nonprofit organisation – receiving tax-deductible donations from the United States through their financial intermediary American Friends of Ateret Cohanim – that focuses on ‘Judaising’ East Jerusalem through a Jewish reclamation project working to expand illegal settlements and facilitate Jewish takeover of Palestinian properties across the ‘Green Line’ into Palestinian territory.
Ateret Cohanim, along with other pro-settler organisations, commonly uses Israel’s 1970 Legal and Administrative Matters law to evict Palestinians from their homes. According to the law, Jewish individuals are allowed to claim ownership of property if they can prove the property was under Jewish ownership before 1948.
However, the law only applies to Jews and does not apply to Palestinians who were dispossessed of their lands and properties during and after the establishment of Israel in 1948, despite their right being upheld in international law in UN General Assembly Resolution 194.
Ateret Cohanim has forced out several Palestinian families from properties that were owned by Jewish families before 1948, with some 30 families currently threatened with eviction in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Batan al-Hawa, as hundreds of Palestinians are targeted through discriminatory legal channels.
The organisation has also worked to purchase property from Palestinians to increase the Jewish presence in Palestinian territory while deterring Jewish families from selling property to Palestinians.
Israeli watchdog Peace Now said in October 2015 settlers affiliated with the Ateret Cohanim group had doubled in population size in the Batan al-Hawa neighbourhood over the past year.
There are over 300,000 Israeli settlers residing in East Jerusalem, as the settler population in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem continues to increase at a faster rate than the population in Israel ‘proper.’ The presence of Israeli settlers in occupied Palestinian territory is considered illegal under international law according to the Fourth Geneva Convention.
