West Bank
HEBRON (Ma'an) --Israeli settlers in Hebron attacked two Palestinian children in the West Bank city on Sunday, their family said.
The group threatened Muhammad Abu Eisha, 12, and his brother Ibrahim, 11, with a knife before striking the children in the Tel Rumeida area, their father, also named Muhammad, told Ma'an.
Israeli soldiers did not apprehend the group, he said.
Hebron is split into Palestinian Authority and Israeli military controlled zones. Around 800 Jewish settlers live among 30,000 Palestinians in the parts of the ancient city that are under Israeli control, including Tel Rumeida.
The settlers are trying to intimidate the remaining Palestinians in order to push them from their homes and take over the entire area, Muhammad Abu Eisha said.
Add a commentCoordinator of the National Committee against the Wall and Settlements in Qalqilya, Rafiq Mara'ba, told Voice of Palestine radio that route of the apartheid wall, which will separate Ma'ale Shomron and Alfei Menashe settlements from Palestinian villages in the area, will also separate Kafr Thulth and Azzoun, towns east of Qalqilya.
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This week Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat announced plans to strip IDs from 70,000 Palestinian residents of Jerusalem , and transfer them to the West Bank civil administration. Though not a physical transfer, this stripping of IDs will mark the largest en masse stripping of citizenship rights, since 1967, the Palestinian naksa, or "setback." Palestinians who were forced into exile as refugees, or were traveling abroad in 1967 were stripped of their Palestinians ID documents.
The Palestinians from East Jerusalem neighborhoods such as Silwan, whose status will be revoked, are already geographically annexed to a "greater Jerusalem" by the security wall. The route of the wall cuts Silwan from other Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem that are east of the wall, and west of the Ma'ale Adumim settlement.
Haaretz's Nir Hassan reported on December 23, the stripping of Jerusalem IDs coincides with the opening of a massive new checkpoint in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat, and the re-emergence of construction on a settler road connecting Jerusalem to Ma'ale Adumim. Finishing the construction, combined with the new checkpoint, would all but cut the West Bank in half-- and complete the physical annexation of East Jerusalem.
Add a commentRead more: Israel prepares to transfer 70,000 Jerusalem Palestinians to West Bank i.d.’s
The streets of Bethlehem were brightly lit with multi-colored lights, stars, bells and angels as Christmas 2011 was celebrated in the "little town" that is becoming smaller and smaller, said the Rev. Mitri Raheb in his opening remarks at a Christmas Eve service at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church here.
In the months leading up to Christmas and the end of 2011, Israel announced plans to continue to expand settlement construction north and west of the city. In late September, it was announced that 1,100 new housing units would be added to the settlement of Gilo, just north of Bethlehem.
In early December, a group of local Christians comprising Kairos Palestine held a five-day international conference in the city. They issued a document — The Bethlehem Call — to all visitors coming to the Holy Land. "Come and see," said the Christians of Palestine. "Come and see the olive groves, the bulldozers, the ancient terraces, the segregated cities. The situation is worsening."
Add a commentRead more: Christmas in Bethlehem Palestine celebrates hope in spite of Israeli settlement expansion
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