Palestine

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Red Cross said Wednesday that it had conducted rare visits to thousands of prisoners on both sides of Yemen’s eight-year civil war, a step that could pave the way for an exchange of detainees between the rival parties.

Fabrizio Carboni, the International Committee of the Red Cross’s director for the Middle East, told The Associated Press that the members of the organization had seen more than 3,400 individuals in a 10-day visit to a facility in Saudi Arabia in December and a separate trip to Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in October.

20 Dec 2022; MEMO: Palestinians expressed concerns after groups of Israeli settlers stormed the Ibrahimi Mosque yesterday and lit menorahs inside its corridors to celebrate Hanukkah under the protection of occupation forces.

The Director of the Hebron Endowment, Nidal Al-Jabari, said that Israeli authorities have been working on Judaising the Ibrahimi Mosque, which is located in the centre of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, through continued excavations.

20 Dec 2022; MEMO: Israeli Jewish settlers yesterday stole 120 sheep from a Palestinian shepherd in the town of Yaabad, south of Jenin, Wafa news agency reported.

Imad Lutfi Zuhair said that the settlers forced him away from his flock and stole the sheep.

According to the shepherd, the Jewish settlers came from the illegal Mevo Dotan settlement, built on stolen Palestinian land near Yaabad.

19 Dec 2022; MEMO: Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has called on the UN to deploy its staff on patrols across the occupied West Bank given the increasing number of settler attacks and excessive use of violence by Israeli security forces against the Palestinians, Wafa has reported.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Thousands of people on Sunday joined the funerals of eight young Palestinian men who drowned off the coast of Tunisia nearly two months ago as they tried to sail to new lives in Europe.

The drownings have reverberated across Gaza, drawing attention to the dire conditions in the territory after a 15-year Israeli-Egyptian blockade but also prompting some rare public criticism of the ruling Hamas militant group.

18 Dec 2022; MEMO: The Palestinian Authority (PA) on Saturday rejected Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu's offer for self-rule, reports Anadolu Agency.

17 Dec 2022; MEMO: Israeli occupation officers have been forcing Palestinians to strip at military checkpoints in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, Maan News Agency reported on Friday.

Palestinian residents have complained to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and asked it to urgently interfere to stop this humiliating practice, but nothing has yet been done.

15 Dec 2022; MEMO: Israel has prevented 200 Palestinian Christians in Gaza from taking part in Christmas festivities in the occupied cities of Bethlehem, Jerusalem and the West Bank. The Greek Orthodox Church in the besieged enclave had sent a list of 800 names to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee in Gaza requesting they be given permission to go to the West Bank to celebrate Christmas, Al-Monitor reported.

15 Dec 2022; MEMO: The Israeli occupation army destroyed the main water pipelines in the village of Al-Auja, in the north-east of Jericho, reported Wafa news agency.

The destruction is seen as being part of the apartheid state's efforts to control all water sources in the occupied Palestinian territories.

16 Dec 2022; MEMO: Israeli settlers today vandalised a Palestinian school for boys with rocks and stones in the village of Urif, based south of Nablus, reported Wafa news agency.

According to Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official who monitors Israeli settlement activities in the Nablus district, more than 40 settlers made their way into the village and pelted the local secondary boys' school with rocks, smashing the solar panels used to supply electricity to the school.