RAMALLAH: As attacks by Israeli forces continue in the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank is also being targeted with incursions resulting in killings, arrests, demolitions of homes and other attacks on properties, Palestinian officials said.
Two Palestinian youths — Ahmed Assaf, 18, and Rani Katnat, 25 — were killed by the Israeli army and others were wounded during a military incursion into the town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin, on Wednesday.
Soldiers reportedly stormed the town after midnight, attacked several houses and destroyed their contents. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said a 17-year-old boy was in a critical condition after being shot in the abdomen.
The ministry also reported that three people were injured during attacks by army forces and settlers on the village of Deir Dibwan, east of Ramallah. Two of them were hit by live bullets, in the abdomen and thigh respectively, and the third suffered a fractured knee.
The Israeli army also reportedly arrested 28 Palestinians from various parts of the West Bank, including six children.
The head of the Palestinian National Council, Rawhi Fattouh, condemned the killings. He said the actions of the Israeli government, including ministers who have called for the killing of Palestinians and expulsion from their land, reflect the “criminal identity of this government that kills women and children.”
The silence of the international community about the crimes of the occupation serves to legitimize the bloody approach, he added, and so “it bears responsibility for the repercussions of these crimes.”
President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement said: “The Israeli aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank reveals the fragility of its political system, which seeks to spill the blood of our people to solve its internal crises.”
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the “barbaric Israeli aggression against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip” and described it as “an attempt by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to regain his lost popularity.”
It added: “Netanyahu is taking advantage of the cover and protection provided by some Western countries to continue violating international law, attacking innocent citizens and assassinating women and children.”
Meanwhile, Israeli bulldozers demolished two apartments belonging to the Shuqairat family in the village of Jabal Mukaber, east of Jerusalem, which officials said had been built without permits.
Palestinian sources said Israeli municipality crews and vehicles entered the village, accompanied by police and special forces, surrounded the apartments, blocked access to them, removed the occupants, and began the demolition process, despite a prior court decision to “freeze the demolition until mid-September.”
Two brothers from the Shuqairat family said they were informed by their lawyer last week that Jerusalem municipality had submitted a legal request to have the hold order lifted, and the court had granted it. The municipality told the brothers to demolish the properties themselves but they refused. Nine people lived in the two apartments, including five children.
Also on Wednesday, the Israeli army demolished three houses in Al-Dyouk Al-Tahta village, west of Jericho. Issam Samrat, a Fatah official in the village, said the demolitions were a reflection of the Israeli policy of occupation and the forced displacement of Palestinians with the aim of ridding areas of their original inhabitants to clear the way for settlement expansion.
Elsewhere, Israeli forces uprooted more than 600 olive trees and damaged 20 water tanks northwest of Hebron.
Wassel Abu Youssef, an official with the Palestine Liberation Organization, told Arab News that Israel is “waging an all-out war against the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which requires an Arab, Islamic boycott of Israel and a proper trial of criminal occupation forces. We must take firm positions against the aggression of Israel.”
Israeli forces kill three in West Bank and destroy houses
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Israeli forces kill three in West Bank and destroy houses
- Ahmed Assaf, 18, and Rani Katnat, 25, were killed when the army stormed the town of Qabatiya; a 17-year-old was in critical condition after being shot in the abdomen
- Meanwhile, two people were shot and one suffered a broken knee during attacks by soldiers and settlers in the village of Deir Dibwan
Tunisia’s famed blue-and-white village threatened after record rains
- The one-time home of French philosopher Michel Foucault and writer Andre Gide, the village is protected under Tunisian preservation law, pending a UNESCO decision on its bid for World Heritage status
SIDI BOU SAID, Tunisia: Perched on a hill overlooking Carthage, Tunisia’s famed blue-and-white village of Sidi Bou Said now faces the threat of landslides, after record rainfall tore through parts of its slopes.
Last week, Tunisia saw its heaviest downpour in more than 70 years. The storm killed at least five people, with others still missing.
Narrow streets of this village north of Tunis — famed for its pink bougainvillea and studded wooden doors — were cut off by fallen trees, rocks and thick clay. Even more worryingly for residents, parts of the hillside have broken loose.
“The situation is delicate” and “requires urgent intervention,” Mounir Riabi, the regional director of civil defense in Tunis, recently told AFP.
“Some homes are threatened by imminent danger,” he said.
Authorities have banned heavy vehicles from driving into the village and ordered some businesses and institutions to close, such as the Ennejma Ezzahra museum.
- Scared -
Fifty-year-old Maya, who did not give her full name, said she was forced to leave her century-old family villa after the storm.
“Everything happened very fast,” she recalled. “I was with my mother and, suddenly, extremely violent torrents poured down.”
“I saw a mass of mud rushing toward the house, then the electricity cut off. I was really scared.”
Her Moorish-style villa sustained significant damage.
One worker on site, Said Ben Farhat, said waterlogged earth sliding from the hillside destroyed part of a kitchen wall.
“Another rainstorm and it will be a catastrophe,” he said.
Shop owners said the ban on heavy vehicles was another blow to their businesses, as they usually rely on tourist buses to bring in traffic.
When President Kais Saied visited the village on Wednesday, vendors were heard shouting: “We want to work.”
One trader, Mohamed Fedi, told AFP afterwards there were “no more customers.”
“We have closed shop,” he said, adding that the shops provide a livelihood to some 200 families.
- Highly unstable -
Beyond its famous architecture, the village also bears historical and spiritual significance.
The village was named after a 12th-century Sufi saint, Abu Said Al-Baji, who had established a religious center there. His shrine still sits atop the hill.
The one-time home of French philosopher Michel Foucault and writer Andre Gide, the village is protected under Tunisian preservation law, pending a UNESCO decision on its bid for World Heritage status.
Experts say solutions to help preserve Sidi Bou Said could include restricting new development, building more retaining walls and improving drainage to prevent runoff from accumulating.
Chokri Yaich, a geologist speaking to Tunisian radio Mosaique FM, said climate change has made protecting the hill increasingly urgent, warning of more storms like last week’s.
The hill’s clay-rich soil loses up to two thirds of its cohesion when saturated with water, making it highly unstable, Yaich explained.
He also pointed to marine erosion and the growing weight of urbanization, saying that construction had increased by about 40 percent over the past three decades.
For now, authorities have yet to announce a protection plan, leaving home and shop owners anxious, as the weather remains unpredictable.
