RAMALLAH/JERUSALEM, December 31, 2016 (WAFA) - Israeli forces shot and killed 134 Palestinians, including 34 minors, most at military checkpoints in the West Bank, since the start of the year, a Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) center said on Saturday.
Meanwhile the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance to the occupied Palestinian territory (OCHA) said in its bi-weekly report on Protection of Civilians that Israeli forces shot dead two 19-year-old Palestinians during two separate clashes in the last two weeks of December.
One of the clashes erupted on 17 December in the Qalandiya refugee camp, north of Jerusalem, after a punitive demolition and the other during a search and arrest operation on 22 December in Beit Rima village near Ramallah, said OCHA.
According to its annual report on Israeli violations in the occupied territories, the PLO’s Abdullah Hourani Center for Documentation said most the 134 Palestinians shot dead by Israeli forces were killed at military checkpoints, which numbered over 472 in 2016. It said 34 of the dead were minors.
OCHA, on the other hand, said that in 2016, 101 West Bank Palestinians were killed in “conflict-related incidents,” including 80 in attacks and alleged attacks against Israelis, down from 145 in 2015.
The PLO center said the Israeli authorities announced or gave tenders or permits for the construction of 27,335 new housing units in settlements in the occupied land.
It said the Israeli forces detained 6970 Palestinians from the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, including 140 minors and 151 women.
Israel also demolished 1023 homes and structures throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem, said the PLO center.
OCHA said Israeli forces conducted nearly 180 search operations and arrested more than 240 Palestinians in the West Bank in the last two weeks of December, including a search operation inside Birzeit University in Ramallah and a media association in Hebron where several computers were reportedly confiscated in the two locations.
The Jerusalem governorate accounted for the highest portion of operations (46) and of arrests (100), said OCHA. Three Palestinian merchants were also arrested at Erez (Beit Hanoun) crossing while returning to Gaza.
The Israeli authorities, said the UN report, demolished or seized 11 structures in Area C and East Jerusalem in the last two weeks of December on the grounds of the lack of building permits, displacing one Palestinian and affecting more than 250 others.
One of the seized structures was a caravan provided by a humanitarian organization to the community of Al Mirkez in Masafer Yatta, to be used as a primary health centre. The community is located in an area designated by the Israeli authorities as a "firing zone" for military training. Such areas constitute nearly 30 per cent of Area C and are inhabited by more than 5,000 Palestinians.
Israeli forces temporarily displaced around 90 people, including 40 children, from the Ibziq herding community in the northern Jordan Valley for several hours on two different days, during a military training exercise. This is the fourth displacement for the community during the past two months.
A similar training during this period resulted in damage to a water connection to the herding community of Khirbet Yarza, which had been previously provided as humanitarian assistance, affecting 65 Palestinians. These exercises further exacerbate a coercive environment, which is putting pressure on affected communities to leave their areas of residence.
M.K.
