JERUSALEM, Wednesday, July 31, 2019 (WAFA) – Israeli forces Wednesday overnight detained 14 Palestinians, including a Fatah official, from various parts of the West Bank, said the Palestine Prisoner’s Society (PPS).
PPS confirmed in a press release that Israeli police detained a Fatah official after breaking into his house in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiyeh, which is squashed between Jerusalem’s Hebrew University and the apartheid wall.
The official was identified as Secretary-General of Fatah Yasser Darwish.
Darwish’s detention came a day after Israeli police summoned Six-year-old Qais Feras Obeid and 4-year-old Mohammad Rabi Elayyan for interrogation from the same neighborhood purportedly for hurling stones at a police vehicle.
Issawiyeh, a village of some 20,000 Palestinian residents, has been the target of severe crackdown since mid June, when police started carrying out daily raids and systematic harassment of the neighborhood’s inhabitants, ostensibly in response to stone-throwing.
During a raid on June 27, Israeli police killed Mohammad Samir Obeid, 20, in the chest with live ammunition and wounded some 20 others.
Meanwhile, PPS confirmed that four Palestinians were rounded up from the southern West Bank district of Hebron.
Security sources identified two of the four detainees as residents of Hebron city, another as a resident of Idhna town.
In the northern West Bank, PPS said Israeli military vehicles raided Attil town, north of Tulkarem city, where soldiers detained three Palestinians.
PPS also confirmed an Israeli military raid in Shufa village, southeast of Tulkarem, resulting in the detention of a Palestinian.
In Nablus district, three former prisoners were rounded up during an Israeli military raid in Nablus city.
Security sources said that Israeli forces detained another Palestinian after stopping him at a roadblock on Nablus-Ramallah Road.
A similar military raid was conducted in Beit Dajan village, east of Nablus, resulting in the detention of a Palestinian.
In Jenin district, an Israeli forces ransacked the houses of eight former prisoners in Silat al-Harithiya and al-Yamoun, northwest and west of Jenin. No detentions were reported though.
In Ramallah district, dozens of Israeli soldiers raided Beit Rima town, northwest of Ramallah, where they ransacked three houses, turning them upside down.
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.
K.F.
