Islam Times - Palestine in Pictures: July 2022

Islam Times- Israeli forces and settlers shot and killed six Palestinians during July – two of them children.

Kamel Abdullah Kamel Alawneh, 17, was shot by Israeli soldiers on 2 July and died from his wounds the following day.

Alawneh was fatally injured while residents of Jaba, a village near the northern West Bank city of Jenin, were protesting as occupation forces erected a checkpoint.

The teen was shot with live bullets in the elbow, and then again in the abdomen as he tried to flee, according to Defense for Children International-Palestine.

Another Palestinian, 20-year-old Rafiq Riyad Ghannam, was killed during an arrest raid in Jaba village on 6 July.

“The army said that during one of a series of raids carried out across the Palestinian territory, its troops fired at a suspect who attempted to escape arrest in the village of Jaba,” the AP news agency reported.

“While Israeli forces had reportedly declared him a wanted person, community members said he was a passerby who started running upon seeing soldiers, fearing for his safety,” the UN monitoring group OCHA stated.
Israel confiscated the young man’s body, preventing his family from holding a burial.

Deadly Nablus raid
Two Palestinians – Muhammad Bashar Azizi, 25 and Abdulrahman Jamal Subeih, 28 – were shot and killed when undercover forces belonging to Israel’s Yamam unit laid siege to a three-story home in the northern West Bank city of Nablus on 24 July.

Israel claimed that a firefight ensued at the home where Palestinian fighters were located.

Occupation forces fired a missile at the house, suggesting the Israeli attack may have been an application of the “pressure cooker procedure,” a form of extrajudicial execution.

During this procedure, occupation forces fire progressively more powerful weapons at a building in an effort to force those inside to surrender. If they refuse to do so, the occupation forces demolish the structure, killing everyone inside.

The slain men were claimed as members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group associated with the Fatah party.

Six Palestinians were injured during the raid, two of them seriously, according to the Palestinian Authority’s health ministry.

On 29 July, an Israeli settler and at least one soldier fired at Amjad Fashat Faheem Naser, 15, killing him, in the central West Bank.

The teen was struck in the back, according to Defense for Children International-Palestine, which stated on 2 August that “it remains unclear if an Israeli soldier or settler fired the fatal round.”

The slain teen had joined residents of al-Mughayyir village in a march to protest against Israeli settler violence, according to the children’s rights group.

Villagers hold regular demonstrations against Malechei HaShalom, a nearby settlement outpost built on al-Mughayyir’s land in 2015.

Amjad is the third Palestinian child killed in al-Mughayyir in recent years, according to Defense for Children International-Palestine.

A total of 18 children have been shot and killed by Israeli forces so far this year, according to the rights group.

The most recent child killed was Dirar Riyad Lufti al-Haj Saleh, 16. He was shot during a raid on Jenin refugee camp on 1 August.

Nearly 80 Palestinians have been shot and killed by Israeli soldiers, police and armed civilians so far this year.

Among them is Hussein Qawariq, 59, who died from injuries sustained after he was shot while approaching an Israeli military post in Huwara, near Nablus, on 26 July.

The Times of Israel reported that Israeli troops called on Qawariq “to stop moving toward their location and fired warning shots into the air. When he failed to heed their warnings, he was shot.”

The mayor of Huwwara said that the slain man was “mentally disabled” and “used to collect bottles and cans from the street and ask for money from businesses in the area.”

Laborer beaten
Ahmad Ayyad, 32, died after he was allegedly beaten by soldiers on 5 July.

Ayyad was among a group of Palestinian laborers who came under fire while attempting to breach Israel’s wall in the West Bank to reach their places of work in Israel.

The slain man’s uncle, Jamal Ayyad, told Middle East Eye that the group was apprehended and beaten by soldiers.

Ahmad Ayyad died from his injuries at a hospital hours later, according to the publication. His body was transferred to his family in Gaza later that day.

Also during July, a Palestinian woman in her sixties died in Israeli custody in what the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said was a case of medical neglect.

Saadia Salem Radwan Matar, from Ithna village near the West Bank city of Hebron, died on 2 July after losing consciousness in Damon prison.

Matar was arrested in December after a settler assaulted her near a checkpoint outside of the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron’s Old City, “claiming that she tried to carry out a stabbing attack,” the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said.

Matar was reportedly the oldest Palestinian woman detained by Israel and shortly before her death, she had attended a court hearing in a wheelchair.

“Her lawyer had already asked the Israeli Prison Service to refer her to a doctor after her medical examinations showed that her health condition was getting worse due to diabetes and [high blood] pressure,” the rights group added.

Cancer patient dies after permit denied
On 4 July, Jihad al-Qedra, a 55-year-old cancer patient from Gaza, died after he was denied access to medical care by Israeli occupation authorities at Erez checkpoint in the north of the besieged territory.

Al Mezan, a human rights group in Gaza and al-Qedra’s legal representative, said that Israel had denied the cancer patient a requisite exit permit to travel for nine different appointments, the last of which was scheduled for 22 June in Nablus.

“This delay led to a serious deterioration of al-Qedra’s health condition and eventually to his death,” the rights group stated.

Al-Qedra was the third patient in Gaza to die since the beginning of the year after Israel denied or delayed permission to travel for medical care.

Since Israel imposed a tightened blockade on Gaza in 2007, nearly 850 patients died while waiting for a permit from Israel to travel outside of Gaza for life-saving treatment.

This is despite how the vast majority of applications for travel to access healthcare treatment were for appointments at Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem and elsewhere in the West Bank, rather than medical facilities in Israel.

Meanwhile, armed groups in Gaza launched four rockets towards Israel on 16 July. “No injuries or damage were reported,” according to OCHA.

“Subsequently, Israeli air forces carried out several raids and fired 12 missiles targeting positions belonging to armed groups … injuring one civilian man and causing damages to the targeted sites and seven civilian properties,” OCHA added.

Three days later, an armed group in Gaza opened fire towards southern Israel, reportedly causing some property damage.

“Subsequently, Israeli air forces fired three missiles towards a Hamas observation point east of Beit Hanoun; no injuries but some damage was reported,” according to OCHA.

In addition, “Israeli authorities suspended a decision to issue 1,500 additional exit permits for Palestinian workers from Gaza.”

Palestinian supporters of the Islamic Jihad faction protest in Gaza City following the death of Saadia Matar in Israeli prison, 2 July. Matar, a mother of eight from the town of Ithna, was detained by Israeli occupation forces in December while she was near the Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron.
Youssef Abu Watfa APA images

Mourners attend the funeral of Kamel Alawneh, 17, in the West Bank village of Jaba, north of Jenin, on 3 July. The Palestinian teenager died after being shot by Israeli forces a day earlier.
Ahmed Ibrahim APA images

The family of Ahmad Ayyad in their Gaza City home on 5 July. Ayyad, a 32-year-old from Gaza, was beaten to death by Israeli soldiers while attempting to breach Israel’s wall in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarm to reach work in Israel, according to his family.
Omar Ashtawy APA images

Palestinians attend a press conference in Gaza City rejecting an American assessment of the death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh finding that she was likely killed by gunfire from Israeli soldiers but it was probably unintentional, 5 July. Palestinian officials and Abu Akleh’s family rejected the American statement and maintained she had been deliberately targeted.
Mahmoud Nasser APA images

Members of the Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, receive Hosni Issa after his release after 20 years in Israeli prison, Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, 6 July.
Majdi Fathi APA images

Palestinian Muslims pray on the first day of Eid al-Adha, or the feast of sacrifice, in Gaza City on 9 July. Muslims across the world celebrate the holiday that marks the end of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and in commemoration of Prophet Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his son to show obedience to God.
Mohammed Dahman APA images

Palestinians, many of them from the West Bank, enjoy the day on the beach during the Eid al-Adha holiday in Jaffa, 10 July. Thousands of Palestinians entered Jaffa and other cities inside the Green Line with special permits issued by the Israeli military for the holiday.
Oren Ziv ActiveStills

Health ministry medics take swab samples from people to test for the coronavirus in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on 14 July. The health ministry in Gaza said that Gaza is officially experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic’s fifth wave due to “the significant increase” of daily infections.
APA images

US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid sign the so-called Jerusalem Declaration during a press conference at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Jerusalem on 14 July. As part of that declaration, the US pledged to continue to shield Israel from international accountability and to use all the force at its disposal to never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.
Atef Safadi UP

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and US President Joe Biden confer while delivering statements to the media after their meeting in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on 15 July.
Thaer Ganaim

Protesters call for justice for slain Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in al-Tur during US President Joe Biden’s visit to Augusta Victoria hospital in East Jerusalem, 15 July.
Oren Ziv ActiveStills

Palestinians in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, protest against the so-called Jerusalem Declaration signed by US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, 17 July.
APA images

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas meets French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on 20 July.
Thaer Ganaim

Mourners carry the bodies of two Palestinians killed by Israeli forces during their funeral in the West Bank city of Nablus on 24 July. Muhammad Bashar Azizi, 25, and Abdulrahman Jamal Subeih, 28, were shot dead last night and 10 others wounded, one of them seriously, in an overnight Israeli raid.
Shadi Jarar’ah APA images

Sahar Herzallah embroiders with her daughter on Palestinian Traditional Dress Day at their home in Gaza City on 25 July. By celebrating this day, Palestinians confront the Israeli attempts to appropriate Palestinian traditional costumes, embroidery and culture.
Omar Ashtawy APA images

The Israeli military destroys a Palestinian home in Birim village, south of the West Bank city of Hebron, on 25 July. Fouad al-Amour, a local activist, said that Israeli forces raided the village and demolished the home as well as stone terraces and a pond used to collect rainwater for agricultural purposes.
Mamoun Wazwaz APA images

A wreath of flowers pays tribute to the memory of Jabra Humaid, the recently deceased mother of Nahed Hamid, who has been imprisoned by Israel for 15 years, during a sit-in protest held in solidarity with hunger striking Palestinian prisoners in front of the Gaza City offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross, 25 July.
Youssef Abu Watfa APA images

The Israeli military demolishes a home in Qarawat Bani Hassan, west of the northern West Bank city of Salfit, belonging to the family of Yahya Mari, 26 July. Mari, who is in Israeli detention, is accused of killing a guard outside Ariel settlement in April. Israeli forces punitively destroyed the home as well as a house belonging to the family of Sami Assi, who is accused of carrying out the shooting with Mari.
Wajed Nobani APA images

Jordan’s King Abdullah II meets Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid at al-Husseiniya Palace in Amman on 27 July.
The Royal Hashemite Court

Palestinian farmers harvest okra at a field in Gaza City on 27 July.
Majdi Fathi APA images

Palestinians confront Israeli settlers during a demonstration against settlement expansion in the village of al-Mughayyir, east of the West Bank city of Ramallah, on 29 July.
APA images

Mourners carry the body of Amjad Abu Alia outside a hospital in the West Bank city of Ramallah on 29 July. The 16-year-old died after being shot in the chest by either Israeli settlers or soldiers during confrontations near the village of al-Mughayyir.
WAFA

Lina Abu Akleh, niece of slain Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, speaks at a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The slain Al Jazeera correspondent’s family continues to demand a meeting with US President Joe Biden and a full investigation by the FBI. Left to right: Tony Abu Akleh, Lina Abu Akleh, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Rep. Marie Newman, Victor Abu Akleh.
Allison Bailey NurPhoto

Palestinian high school student Waad Badr, whose father was killed in an Israeli airstrike, celebrates with her family after it was announced that she scored 94.7 percent in her final exams, Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, 30 July.
APA images

Palestinian high school student Obaida al-Auf, whose father was killed during Israel’s military offensive in Gaza during November 2012, celebrates after hearing that he scored 92 percent in his matriculation exams, Gaza City, 30 July.
Atia Darwish APA images