Palestine: Child wounded, settlers burnt or uprooted 7500 olives trees & Israelis kidnap 7 family members

Al Quds

IOF troops seriously wound Palestinian child in east Jerusalem

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)– Local sources in occupied Jerusalem said that Asil Ara’ra, was seriously wounded Wednesday morning by bullets from a nearby IOF training grounds near the village of Anata to the east of Jerusalem.

The same sources said that the Murabiteen committee condemned this incident and sent its representative to the Makasid hospital were the little girl is fighting for her life, while the chairman of the committee called for the closure of the military post which was the source of the deadly bullets.

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Jewish settlers burnt or uprooted 7500 olives trees in 9 months

RAMALLAH, (PIC)– Jewish settlers burnt or uprooted 7500 Palestinian olive trees in the first nine month of 2011, a report by the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs in the occupied territories (OCHA) said on Tuesday.

The report documents the damage of thousands of dunums of Palestinian agricultural fields cultivated with olives.

It said that Palestinians’ access to their olive fields near 55 settlements in the West Bank was limited to certain periods in the year and in the presence of Israeli occupation forces.

It noted that the Israelis turn down 40% of requests by Palestinian farmers to “visit” their fields located beyond the separation wall.

OCHA pointed out that Palestinian farmers in the Gaza Strip suffer from the same complications when trying to approach their fields near to the border fence.

It said that thousands of farmers are deprived of reaching their land for “security reasons” or for failure to meet the Israeli requirements to prove that those are their lands.

The report underlined that 45% of all Palestinian farmlands are cultivated with 12 million olive trees, mostly in the West Bank, adding that the olive oil industry provides one quarter of the overall agricultural revenues in Palestine on which 100000 families depend for their sustenance.

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Israeli intelligence kidnaps 7 family members of detained Jerusalemite MP

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)– Israeli occupation forces and intelligence agents broke into the home of detained Jerusalemite MP Ahmed Attoun in Sur Baher village and took away seven of his relatives including two brothers.

The father of the MP told the Quds media center that a big number of Israeli policemen and border police accompanied intelligence agents and took away two of his other sons in the raid that took place before dawn Tuesday, adding that the police stormed the nearby homes of his brothers as well.

He said that the police forces detained five of Attoun’s cousins, adding that an intelligence officer told him that they had a list of names of his family to be arrested but did not give reasons for the arrest.

The father charged that the Israeli occupation authority wanted to spoil the family’s joy with the release of one of Attoun’s brothers in the recent prisoners’ exchange deal.

Israeli forces kidnapped MP Attoun from his sit-in tent pitched inside the premises of the Red Cross in Jerusalem last month. The lawmaker refused an Israeli court offer to release him in return for leaving the holy city.

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Awkaf rejects the demolition of the Bab al-Magharba mound

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)– The Islamic Awkaf department in occupied Jerusalem rejected an announcement made the municipality engineer on Tuesday that the Bab al-Magharba bridge is in danger of collapse and that it should be demolished within 30 days.

The Awkaf department said that it was its responsibility [not that of the occupation municipality] to maintain the Bab al-Magharaba mound as it is an Islamic Wakf (endowment) and no one but the Awkaf department is authorised to maintain it.

The occupation municipality engineer responsible for al-Buraq wall declared that legal action is going to be taken against him if the bridge is not demolished.

This decision is part of the occupation municipality’s efforts to change the Islamic features of the old city. The Islamic Awakf want the bridge and the mound holding it to be renovated as a historic feature rather than being demolished and replaced with a modern bridge that is completely out of place in the old city with its historic buildings.

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