Valentine’s Day season in Gaza is when the best pop songs are released, when everyone on the streets was wearing red, and when all the locally grown roses were nearly sold out, Hani Almadhoun of UNRWA writes. But spouses’ inability to support families is driving the divorce rate up.
Bader Nidal Nafla Harha, 19, was killed by Israeli soldiers during protests near the village of Qaffin, in the northern West Bank. Harfa was shot during protests that erupted near the illegal Israeli Annexation Wall, where many residents marched on their lands to reject Donald Trump’s so-called ‘deal of the century’. He was the fourth Palestinian youth killed in recent days.
Palestinian medical sources have reported that a child died, Friday, from serious wounds he suffered in mid-October of 2019, after Israeli soldiers shot in southern Gaza, IMEMC reports. The sources said the child, Ala’ Hani al-Abbassi, 15, was shot by the soldiers with a high-velocity gas bomb in his head, east of Khan Younis.
Three 17-year-old Gaza boys were killed by Israeli forces near the Gaza fence on January 20. Their families deny Israel’s accusation that they were attacking Israeli soldiers, and are demanding the return of their bodies, according to a report by Middle East Eye.
British peace activist Tom Hurndall was shot in Gaza in 2003 and died in Jan. 2004, and his death was commemorated by a group called Gaza 2020 Breaking the Siege that tried to enter the blockaded strip. They were arrested in Israel before they could cut the fence.
In the 14th year of Israeli siege, the Israel Defense Forces Chief of General Staff Aviv Kochavi declared his support for a plan to offer Gaza workers certain relief in return for calm in southern Israel, Ynet reports.
Israeli police Thursday arrested a pair of Israeli teens who were allegedly on their way to carry out a hate crime attack against a Palestinian village in the central West Bank, the Times of Israel reports.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, Prisoners’ Affairs Commission, and Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association report that in 2019, Israeli occupation forces arrested over 5,500 Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territory; including 889 children.
Israeli snipers targeting participants in Gaza’s weekly Great Return March protests have aimed for the legs – and eyes. To date, Gaza’s Ministry of Health reports that 50 protesters have been shot in the eye with teargas canisters or rubber bullets since the demonstrations began March 30, 2018 – leaving them permanently blind, according to an investigation by al-Araby.