RAMALLAH, Thursday, May 26, 2022 (WAFA) – Israeli forces Thursday overnight detained 31 Palestinians, including a 60-year-old man and at least two minors, in large-scale raids across the West Bank, according to local and security sources.
They said that Israeli forces rounded up a Palestinian after breaking into and searching his family house in Silwad town, northeast of the central West Bank city of Ramallah.
The soldiers rounded up another after ransacking his family house in Ramallah city.
In Nablus district, gun-toting soldiers showed up at a house in Huwara town, south of Nablus, and re-arrested a former prisoner.
The town has recently become a scene of confrontations with Israeli settlers, who, under military protection, storm the town to hoist Israeli flags or take down Palestine flags on electrical poles in the main street.
Elsewhere in the northern West Bank, Israeli forces detained six others, including a 60-year-old man, after forcibly entering the houses of their families in Qalqiliya city.
In Jenin district, the soldiers manning the intermittently staffed Ya‘bad checkpoint, also known as Mevo Dotan, stopped and detained three others, including a former prisoners.
In the southern West Bank, the heavily-armed soldiers forcibly entered a number of houses in Sa‘ir town, east of Hebron, woke up all the residents, turned the houses topsy-turvy, and detained nine others, including three fathers along with their minor children.
They conducted a raid in Yatta town, south of Hebron, and detained two others.
The sources confirmed a similar raid in Bani Na‘im, east of the city, resulting in the detention of three others, including two brothers.
Meanwhile, police rounded up five others and ransacked the houses of their families across Jerusalem, turning them upside down.
On Wednesday evening, the soldiers rounded up another from Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank district of Hebron after settlers, under military protection, assaulted and chased herders in Ein al-Beida, one of the communities making up Masafer Yatta.
Police also detained another, who serves as Waqf guard and is a chronic patient, after beating him in the vicinity of Bab al-Amoud.
Israeli forces frequently raid Palestinian houses almost on a daily basis across the West Bank on the pretext of searching for "wanted" Palestinians, triggering clashes with residents.
These raids, which take place also in areas under the full control of the Palestinian Authority, are conducted with no need for a search warrant, whenever and wherever the military chooses in keeping with its sweeping arbitrary powers.
Under Israeli military law army commanders have full executive, legislative and judicial authority over 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank. Palestinians have no say in how this authority is exercised.
According to the latest figures from Addameer, the Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, there are currently 4,450 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers.
This number includes approximately 530 Palestinians placed under “administrative detention”, that allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing.
Mass arrest of Palestinians is nothing new. According to a 2017 report by Addameer, over the past 50 years, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned or detained by Israel, this figure is now believed to be closer to 1 million. This means that about 40% of Palestinian men and boys living under military occupation have been deprived of their freedom. Almost every Palestinian family has suffered the imprisonment of a loved one.
K.F.
