JERUSALEM, May 14, 2010 (WAFA)- UN OCHA said that Israeli forces injured 24 Palestinians during the reporting period, significantly above the number of Palestinians wounded the previous week (14). An Israeli soldier was also injured. Since the beginning of the year, six Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have been killed and 625 Palestinians and 74 Israelis injured in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Twelve of this week’s injuries were sustained during demonstrations, which took place to protest land confiscation and Israeli settler violence in Iraq Burin village in Nablus (eight), the expansion of Hallamish settlement in the Ramallah area (one) and against the construction of the Barrier in the Palestinian villages of Al Walaja in Bethlehem (two) and Bil’in in Ramallah (one).
In its weekly protection of civilians report it said that in the latter village, 40 olive trees were partially burnt by a fire started when tear gas canisters were fired by Israeli forces during the protest; six Palestinians and two Israeli activists were also arrested. Two other demonstrations were conducted in the Hebron area, protesting against the restrictions on access to land near the settlement of Karmi Zur (next to Beit Ummar village) and the closure since 2000 of Al Shuhada Street – the main road leading to Al Ibrahimi Mosque – in the Israeli-controlled area of Hebron City (H2); no casualties were reported. The remaining 12 Palestinians were wounded in the course of IDF search operations, nine of whom sustained injuries when clashes erupted between Palestinians and Israeli forces during a search operation in the Silwan neighbourhood of East Jerusalem. Israeli forces conducted 137 search operations inside Palestinian towns and villages during the week, significantly above the average number of weekly operations since the beginning of 2010 (100). As in previous weeks, the majority of these operations took place in the northern West Bank (72). According to Israeli sources, one Israeli soldier was wounded when Israeli forces attempted to prevent stone throwing from Palestinians towards Israeli settlers near Al Mazra’a ash Sharqiya village (Ramallah).
OCHA added that the situation remains relatively calm in the Gaza Strip, with no reports of conflict-related casualties. Although Israeli air forces resumed air strikes targeting tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, after a two-week lull, no casualties were reported. Since the beginning of 2010, 17 Palestinians (including six civilians), three Israeli soldiers and one foreign national have been killed and another 71 Palestinians (including 59 civilians) and four Israeli soldiers have been injured in the context of the Palestinian- Israeli conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel.
Israeli restrictions on Palestinian access to land inside the “buffer zone” along the Gaza-Israel border continue. During the week, a number of demonstrations protesting these access restrictions took place in border-adjacent areas, without casualty. Israeli tanks and bulldozers, under the cover of heavy shooting, launched incursions a few hundred meters inside Gaza on four separate occasions, withdrawing after conducting land-leveling operations.
Access restrictions also continue to be enforced beyond three nautical miles from the shore; in one incident this week, Israeli naval vessels opened “warning” fire towards Palestinian fishing boats, forcing them ashore. As a result of restrictions on sea access, the Gaza fishing catch continues to deteriorate, affecting the livelihoods of over 3,000 fishermen and their families. According to recently -released figures from the World Food Programme, the fishing catch deteriorated in the first quarter of 2010; for example, declining by one-third in March 2010 (59.1 metric tons (mt)) compared to the parallel figure for March 2009 (88.8 mt). Fishing limitations are also expected to affect this seasons’ overall sardine catch, which runs from March to June and makes up almost 70 percent of the annual fishing catch.
