A General strike was held in Rahat City in southern Israel yesterday, against Israel’s rampant demolitions of Palestinian homes in Israel.
Israeli bulldozers demolished two Palestinian-owned buildings and a wall in Wadi Ara region, in northern Israel on Monday, while a Palestinian resident of the Qalansuwa City in central Israel was forced to demolish his own home upon order by the Israeli authorities on Wednesday.
The Rahat Municipality organised a meeting, on Wednesday.
The meeting took place in a tent set up on land belonging to the al-Atayqa family after six homes of the family were demolished by Israel.
In 2015, the United Nations verbally condemned Israel’s systematic destruction of Palestinian homes and declared the practice illegal.
Meanwhile, a 53-year-old Palestinian was hospitalised yesterday morning after an Israeli settler rammed his car into him and fled the scene in the Old City of Hebron.
Aref Jaber, a photojournalist and member of the Human Rights Defenders Group in Hebron, said that a settler rammed his car into 53-year-old Jum’a Qafisha and fled the scene.
Qafisha suffered from a fractured arm and bruises and was immediately transferred to a hospital for necessary medical treatment.
Attacks involving Israeli settlers ramming their cars into Palestinians are a relatively regular occurrence in the occupied West Bank, and are rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities.
Israeli police usually treat such attacks as accidents, even in cases when witnesses claim the ramming attacks were deliberate.
The city of Hebron, which houses the Ibrahimi Mosque, is home to roughly 160,000 Palestinian Muslims and about 800 notoriously aggressive Israeli settlers who live in compounds heavily guarded by Israeli troops.
Palestinians of the city face a large Israeli military presence on a daily basis with at least 32 permanent and partial checkpoints set up at the entrances of many streets.
Also yesterday, Israeli police banned a ceremony by the Jerusalem Girls Association to celebrate Mothers’ Day under the pretext that it was sponsored by the Palestinian Authority.
Police forces were deployed at the entrance of the French Cultural Institute in Salah Eddin Street, the main commercial street in occupied East Jerusalem, where the ceremony was set to take place, and posted the ban decision signed by Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan on the entrance.
Meanwhile, ahead of World Water Day today, it was revealed yesterday that more than 97% of the water pumped from the coastal aquifer in the Gaza Strip does not meet the water quality standards of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
