WEST BANK Palestinians held a general strike yesterday in solidarity with people in Gaza in the wake of the Israeli attack on a ‘safe zone’ that killed at least 90 people.
Saturday’s attack on the designated safe zone of al-Mawasi was the latest of the many war crimes by the Zionist regime.
Most cities in the West Bank joined the general strike on Sunday against Israel’s air attack on the refugee camp west of Khan Younis.
Palestinians also protested on Saturday night in the cities of Jenin, Hebron and Tubas to condemn the devastating war.
On Sunday morning shops closed in Jenin, the Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem, and in Tulkarem in response to calls for the strike.
In addition to voicing their anger over the war on Gaza, Palestinians are also expressing frustration with their fractured politics, said Odeh.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported on Sunday that at least 38,584 Palestinians have been killed and 88,881 have been injured in Israel’s war on the enclave.
Meanwhile, violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, which had been escalating even before Israel’s war on Gaza began in October, has intensified dramatically in the past months.
An increase in Israeli military raids on Palestinian groups, expansion of settlements and violent attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages have drawn response from Palestinian armed groups in the occupied territory.
The Palestinian Prisoners Society reported on Sunday that Israeli soldiers had arrested 30 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank over the past two days.
Israel has now arrested nearly 10,000 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in near-daily raids.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, said that the international community’s failure to stop Israeli crimes enabled Israel to commit the genocide in the Gaza Strip.
She said that the genocide in Gaza is the result of ‘Israel’s decades-long impunity.’
Albanese stressed that the international community cannot continue to ignore that it’s Israel’s project to rid Palestine of Palestinians in defiance of international law, and the world’s failure to call Israel to account has led to genocide laid bare in Gaza.
Earlier, Albanese said that ‘the fact that Western media does not talk about the Israeli genocide in Gaza does not mean that genocide and repression have stopped; rather it confirms that they are normalised.’
She also noted that famine has been spreading across the Gaza Strip as a result of the ‘intentional Israeli starvation against the Palestinians.’
Since October 7th, 2023, Israel, backed by the United States, has launched a devastating war on Gaza, leading to the killing and injuring of more than 126,000 Palestinians, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and famine that has killed dozens of more children.
Dozens of extremist Jewish settlers desecrated the Aqsa Mosque in Occupied Jerusalem on Sunday morning and later in the afternoon.
According to local sources, scores of settlers entered the Mosque in groups through its Maghariba Gate and toured its courtyards under tight police protection.
A number of settlers escorted by police officers also gathered in the eastern area of the Mosque and started performing Talmudic prayers.
Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation police imposed movement and entry restrictions on Muslim worshippers at the Aqsa Mosque’s entrances and gates.
The Aqsa Mosque is exposed to daily desecration by Jewish settlers and police forces in the mornings and afternoons except on Fridays and Saturdays.
Recently, Jerusalemite figures and activists urged Palestinian citizens to march en masse to the Aqsa Mosque and intensify their presence in its courtyards to protect it against settler desecration.
The health ministry in Gaza said on Sunday that the Israeli occupation army had committed four massacres in different areas of the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, killing at least 141 civilians and injuring more than 400 others, while a large number of victims are still under the rubble of bombed buildings or lying on roads – but at least 541 of them, including 141 dead, had been transported to hospitals.
The health ministry added that the official death toll from the ongoing Israeli bombardments and shooting attacks, which started on October 7th, climbed to 38,584 dead and the number of wounded surged to 88,881.
The Gaza Strip has been under brutal bombardment since a cross-border operation was launched by Hamas’s armed wing, al-Qassam Brigades, on October 7th.
Besides the large number of casualties and the huge displacement of people, basic food, fuel, water and medical supplies have run out for the 2.3 million residents in Gaza due to the tight Israeli blockade and the massive destruction of infrastructure and facilities.
Scott Anderson, Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator and Director of the United Nations relief agency UNRWA in Gaza, said during his visit to the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis that the ‘air was filled with the smell of blood.
‘Visiting the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis yesterday, I witnessed some of the most horrific scenes I have seen in my nine months in Gaza. This overstretched health facility admitted well over 100 of yesterday’s severe injuries.
‘With not enough beds, hygiene equipment, sheeting, or scrubs, many patients were treated on the ground without disinfectants.
‘Ventilation systems were switched off due to a lack of electricity and fuel, and the air was filled with the smell of blood.
‘I saw toddlers who are double amputees, children paralysed and unable to receive treatment, and others separated from their parents.
‘I also saw mothers and fathers who were unsure if their children were alive. Parents told me in despair that they had moved into the “so-called humanitarian zone” in the hope that their children would be safe there.
‘My colleagues from the humanitarian community are doing everything possible to increase medical capacity in Gaza, where the health system has long been on the ropes. Yesterday, we provided referral services, as well as additional tents, beds, stretchers, disposables, and medications.
‘But impediments to humanitarian operations prevent us from supporting people anywhere near the scale necessary,’ Anderson added.
‘Civilians must be protected at all times. We urgently need a ceasefire, the release of all remaining hostages, respite for the people of Gaza, and a meaningful opportunity for healing to begin,’ he concluded.
More than 9,655 Palestinians from the West Bank, including Jerusalem, have been detained by Israeli occupation forces since the onset of the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza in early October 2023, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.
In a joint statement released yesterday, they detailed that this figure includes individuals detained from their homes, those detained at military checkpoints, those who surrendered under pressure, and those held as hostages.
The report highlights that in the past two days alone, at least 30 individuals were detained across the occupied West Bank, including a woman and several former prisoners. The detentions were concentrated in the districts of Ramallah, Hebron, Qalqilya, Tulkarm, Jenin, Jericho, and Jerusalem.
On Sunday afternoon, Israeli occupation forces raided a residential building in the Wadi al-Joz neighbourhood in occupied Jerusalem, cutting electricity in preparation for its demolition.
This action follows a decision by the all-Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem to demolish the structure, which has stood since the last century.
Nader Jaber, the owner of the building, stated that he ‘has been paying fines for 30 years, exceeding one million shekels, yet they still want to destroy my home.’
The building contains three apartments for his children and grandchildren, one of which was constructed before the occupation of Jerusalem.
He added: ‘I have been forced to evacuate all three apartments and am now waiting for the demolition bulldozers to arrive at any moment.’
