Unacceptable! Israeli Occupation Knows Who Burned Palestinian Family Alive-suspects not being identified to protect the ‘sources’

Israeli Authorities Know Who Burned Palestinian Family Alive, Defense Minister Says

Haaretz Jonathan Lis and Chaim Levinson

Ya’alon says suspects not being identified to protect the sources; since attack that killed members of Dawabsheh family, three Jewish assailants have been detained.

Israel’s defense establishment knows who is responsible for the arson attack that killed three members of a Palestinian family two months ago, but has chosen to prevent legal recourse in order to protect the identity of their sources, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon told a closed meeting of some 20 young Likud activists in Tel Aviv on Wednesday.
Three Jewish suspects were put under administrative detention following the attack.

The Dawabshe family home in Duma, West Bank, was torched on July 31, immediately killing 18-month-old Ali and critically wounding his mother, father and brother. His mother, Reham, and his father, Sa’ad, have since died as well. His 4-year-old brother Ahmed is still hospitalized in serious condition.

The words ‘Vengeance’ and ‘long live the Messiah’ were spray painted on the torched Dawabshe family home, and an empty house was set ablaze as well. An eyewitness reported seeing four men flee the scene toward the settlement of Ma’aleh Ephraim.
The IDF described the incident as “Jewish terrorism.’ At Ya’alon’s request following the attack, the political-security cabinet approved the use of administrative detention against suspected Jewish terrorists. Such practice is commonly used against Palestinians suspected of terror activities.

Three Jewish suspects are currently being held without trial for terrorist activities: Meir Ettinger, who according to the Shin Bet headed an extreme rightist organization intent on toppling the Israeli government though violent means, and encouraged others to carry out terrorist acts; Mordechai Meyer, the alleged arsonist behind a fire at Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem; and Eviatar Slonim, accused of setting fire to a home in the Palestinian town of Khirbet Abu Falah.
None of these names has been explicitly tied publicly to the attack on the Dawabshe family home in Duma.
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Israeli Squatters Suspected in Execution of Palestinian Bus Driver

Press TV

Israeli settlers have hanged a Palestinian man in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) in another incident of brutality against Palestinians in the occupied territories, local sources say.

Hassan Yousef Rammouni, 32, a Palestinian bus driver, was driving back home from work on Sunday when he was abducted and then hanged by Israelis in his bus in the Ras al-Amud neighborhood.

Signs of strangulation on Rammouni’s neck as well as signs of violence on his body were apparent, sources said.

The residents staged a protest against the killing in the area with clashes breaking out between Israeli forces and the Palestinian protesters, according to reports.

Tensions have been running high in East al-Quds after Israeli troops shot dead a young Palestinian man in northern occupied territories last week.

Israeli forces claim Khair al-Din Hamdan was shot during a raid, but video footage released after the incident shows an Israeli soldier getting out of his car and shooting directly at Hamdan.

Following the unrest sparked by the killing, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a harsh crackdown on protests.

Palestinians have vowed to keep holding demonstrations in protest at Hamdan’s killing until the Israeli soldier who shot him dead is brought to justice.

MSM/NT/AS

 

Israeli Occupation Border Police Who Murdered 2 Palestinian Youth Arrested for Using ‘Live Ammo’ NOT Murder

Last May security video documented forces shooting Palestinian teens during violent Nakba Day protest, causing wave of international condemnation; now Israeli fighter allegedly behind shooting arrested for firing live rounds.

Noam (Dabul) Dvir for YNet

 

Live ammunition was allegedly used by security forces in a deadly shooting incident at Beitunia during Nakba Day protests last May in which two Palestinian youth Nadeem Siam Nawara, 17, and  Mohammad Mahmoud Odeh, 16,were killed, an ongoing investigation into the case has revealed.

At issue is a clash between Israeli troops and Palestinian stone-throwers May 15 near the West Bank town of Beitunia, a few hundred meters from an Israeli military base, Ofer. On that day, Palestinians marked the anniversary of their uprooting in the war over Israel’s 1948 creation by holding marches and protests in the West Bank and Gaza.

According to a source involved in the investigation, a security force was arrested for his role in the death of the protesters and another from the same unit was taken in for questioning.

Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a senior spokesman, said at the time that preliminary findings show forces fired only rubber-coated steel pellets, a standard means of crowd control, and did not use live fire.

The incident sparked a wave of anger at Israel, after a human rights group released video it said showed that the Palestinian teenagers shot dead by security forces during a Nakba protest had posed no danger to the forces and were killed unlawfully.

The IDF said a preliminary investigation indicated that security personnel had fired rubber bullets but not live ammunition during the May 15 clashes outside Israel’s Ofer prison near the West Bank city of Ramallah.

But it said two investigations – one by military police – were still under way while a senior Palestinian official called the killings a “deliberate execution”.

Palestinian hospital officials said Muhammad Abu Thahr and Nadim Nuwara had both been shot in the heart. Officials originally gave their respective ages as 22 and 17, but later said they were 16 and 17.

Defense for Children International (DCI) posted two minutes of video on YouTube, which it said was edited from fixed security cameras at a Palestinian-owned business that had filmed the scene.

The video shows, the group said, that troops committed “unlawful killings where neither child presented a direct and immediate threat to life at the time of their shooting”.

Under Israeli rules of engagement, troops can use live ammunition only if they feel they are in mortal danger or if they are fired on themselves.

Initial video shows a youth preparing to hurl a stone from the end of a street, which runs alongside a row of shuttered shops. Seven minutes later, according to a timestamp on the film, a young man is seen falling over, felled by apparent gunfire, as he walks down the street, his hands by his side.

A group of bystanders are seen to duck at the same moment.

Israeli Occupation Troops Murder Palestinian teen in West Bank

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Washington confirmed that a Palestinian teenager shot dead by Israeli troops was a US citizen — the second time this week an American child has fallen victim to the ongoing conflict.

The army said that the youth killed Friday had been about to hurl a petrol bomb at Israeli motorists near the West Bank city of Ramallah.

An army spokeswoman said troops posted at the village of Silwad to protect a major road widely used by Jewish settlers in the occupied territory spotted a person about to hurl a petrol bomb.

“The forces fired immediately to neutralize the danger … and confirmed a hit,” she said.

Palestinian officials named the youth as Orwa Hammad, 17, saying he was shot during a stone-throwing protest against troops, a regular occurrence at Silwad, near Ofra settlement.

US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the US “expresses its deepest condolences to the family of a US citizen minor who was killed by the Israeli Defense Forces.”

Calling for “a speedy and transparent investigation,” Psaki said officials from the US consulate in Jerusalem were in touch with the family of the slain youth.

“We continue to urge all parties to help restore calm and avoid escalating tensions in the wake of the tragic recent incidents in Jerusalem and the West Bank,” said Psaki.

Locals in Silwad said Hammad’s father lives in the United States.

Also on Friday, police in annexed east Jerusalem clashed with Palestinians, firing tear gas to disperse stone-throwing protesters.

They were deployed in force ahead of weekly Muslim prayers as the army restricted access to a flashpoint mosque, after a deadly Palestinian attack sent tensions soaring.

Nightly clashes

Clashes have broken out nightly since a Palestinian ploughed his car into a crowd of Israelis on Wednesday, killing a baby who Washington said was a US citizen, and injuring six other people before he was shot dead by police.

The security presence was boosted across east Jerusalem including the Old City, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.

Palestinian men under the age of 40 were not allowed into Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound for Friday prayers because of fears of further unrest, she said.

The compound is the scene of frequent clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police.

The plaza houses the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site. It is also revered by Jews as the location of the biblical Jewish temples, considered Judaism’s holiest place.

Prayers concluded on Friday afternoon with clashes in the Wadi Joz neighborhood north of the Old City.

Palestinians there threw stones and fired flares at police, who dispersed them and arrested three demonstrators, Samri said.

An AFP correspondent said undercover police in the crowd of Palestinians made the arrests.

There were also clashes in east Jerusalem’s Issawiya neighborhood, where AFP photographers saw police fire bursts of tear gas to break up a crowd of Palestinians who hurled rocks and burned tyres on the streets.

There were no reports of injuries on either side.

Samri said around 8,000 people took part in prayers at Al-Aqsa, with hundreds of others in areas around the site.

On Thursday night, two Palestinians were arrested during clashes in the Old City in which stones, bottles and flares were thrown or fired at police, who used unspecified “riot dispersal” weapons, Samri said.

The fighting has shaken east Jerusalem on an almost daily basis since the murder of a Palestinian teenager by Jewish extremists in July.

Clashes intensified during the 50-day Gaza war.

Police branded Wednesday’s incident — in which 21-year-old Abdelrahman Shaludi from Silwan in east Jerusalem drove at high speed into a crowd of Israelis — a “terror attack.”

Silwan — a densely populated Arab neighborhood on a steep hillside just south of the Old City — has been the focus of Palestinian anger over Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that any further attacks would be met with “the harshest response.”

Meanwhile a suicide car bomb attack in the Sinai peninsula which killed 30 Egyptian soldiers prompted Cairo to close the Rafah crossing into the Gaza Strip, the only route into the Palestinian territory not controlled by Israel.

Israeli Occupation Troops Kill Two Palestinians In The West Bank

Israeli troops on Tuesday killed two Palestinians whom Israel accuses of being involved in the June murder of three Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

Amer Abu Eisha and Marwan Qawasmeh were killed in an alleged “exchange of fire” in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, the army said.

The two men were in a house in Hebron and gunfire broke out during an arrest operation by the Shin Bet internal security services and the army’s anti-terror unit, it indicated in a statement.

Residents told AFP they heard an exchange of fire during the assault, and that the army had also broken down the doors of several shops in the area.

Local youths threw stones at the soldiers near the scene of the raid, and following the shooting, a general strike was being observed across the city.

The suspects “no longer pose a threat to Israeli civilians,” army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said on Twitter, posting pictures of the two men.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the operation, saying the suspects had been “dealt with.”

“I said that whoever perpetrated the kidnapping and murder of our boys would bear the consequences… that we would pursue the enemy, find them and not return until they had been dealt with,” he said in a statement.

The army had already partially destroyed the two men’s homes on July 1, a day after the teenagers’ bodies were found. The demolitions were completed in August.

The June abduction of Frenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrach from a hitchhiking stop near Hebron sparked a huge Israeli search operation in which hundreds of Palestinians were arrested and at least five killed.

Israel immediately blamed the kidnappings on Hamas militants.

In July, Israeli settlers killed Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir by setting him on fire.

On August 14, a Palestinian man was killed after being knocked down by an Israeli settler car near an illegal settlement in the central West Bank.

Similarly, on August 7, a settler ran over and injured an 8-year old Palestinian girl with their car in the southern West Bank.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)