West Bank is a pressure cooker
On the one hand, you have regular raids by the Israeli army, including arrests, shootings and killings of Palestinians – more than 620 of them in the past 10 months.
And then you have settlers’ raids. Those happen with the company of Israeli soldiers. It happened in the morning in the southern Hebron Hills, where Israeli settlers came in the bus loads to an area that they have their eyes on. It is already designated as an area that will be taken over by settlers, and that increased tensions.
Israeli soldiers are now clearing away the financial heart of Hebron City – the occupied West Bank’s largest city and largest commercial centre, in order to make way for another raid by Israeli settlers who want to visit an old grave in that area and carry out prayers.
Another provocation – this time in the heart of Hebron City, which many see as a microcosm of the occupied West Bank, where confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli settlers is face-to-face, house-to-house, never-ending and adding to the tensions already provoked by that visit in al-Aqsa that Hamdah was talking about.
Israeli settlers attack activists and herders in occupied West Bank
Israeli settlers attacked sheepherders and activists who were accompanying them for safety in the village of Susya in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, Wafa news agency reported.
Locals told Wafa that the settlers attacked the herders and physically assaulted international peace activists who were trying to help them and document the attacks.
The settlers broke a camera belonging to one of the activists and told the group to leave the area.
Israeli authorities issue stop-work orders to West Bank houses
Israeli authorities issued stop-work orders to more than 15 houses in the Jabal al-Nu’eima area, north of Jericho in the occupied West Bank, Wafa news agency reported.
Mahmoud Masharfa, a PA official who focuses on illegal settlement in Jericho and the Jordan Valley, said that the houses – between 15 and 20 in number – are already occupied.
Masharfa said these orders “come as part of the Israeli policy of collective punishment against Palestinians and to seize more land for settlement expansion”.
Teenager shot and killed by Israeli forces near occupied East Jerusalem
Israeli forces shot and killed a 16-year-old boy in the town of Anata, east of Jerusalem, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Wafa cited the town’s media office as saying the boy, identified as Shadi Wessam Sheiha, was working in a car wash when he was shot by an Israeli sniper from the nearby illegal settlement of Pisgat Zeev.
His killing brings the total number of those who lost their lives in the occupied West Bank since October 7 to 625.
Israeli authorities detain head of the Palestine Olympic Committee
Jibril Rajoub, who is also a member of Fatah’s Central Committee, was stopped by the Israelis upon his return from the Paris Olympics on his way to the occupied West Bank, Wafa news agency reported.
The 71-year-old was searched, had his passport confiscated and was summoned for questioning at Ofer military compound near Ramallah on Thursday.
Rajoub has previously been threatened with imprisonment by some members of the Israeli government for campaigning to bar Israel from the Olympics and football World Cup because of its violations of the Olympic Charter and FIFA regulations against apartheid in sports.
In May, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz threatened to revoke his travel pass.
“We will work to thwart his plans, and if he doesn’t stop, we will imprison him in the Muqataa [presidential compound in Ramallah], where he will be left to play stanga by himself between the walls,” said Katz, referring to a popular Israeli street game involving a football.
Head of the Palestinian Football Association Jibril Rajoub speaks during an event in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, before the 2024 Olympics in Paris, France
Genocide Olympics... What are the chances apartheid in Israel is still ongoing in 2028, 99%? What are the chances Israel will be barred from the Olympics in the USA in 2028 like South Africa was and Russia is? 1%? The Winter Olympics in 2026 will be in Italy, another ironclad supporter of Israel.
