Israeli forces Monday at noon besieged the Palestinian Bab al-Rahma cemetery outside occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City, denying the entry of Palestinians attempting to bury the body of a woman. The cemetery has been in use for 1000 years but Israelis want to use part of it for a national park.
“We are dedicating this memorial in honor of two young lives that have been snuffed out unjustly,” said Reverend Graylan Hagler of DC, dedicating a shrine in Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem to Tamir Rice, 12, and Abd al-Rahman Obeidallah, 13, killed within months of each other by authorities.
From the International Solidarity Movement: This weekend in al-Khalil brought thousands of extremist Jews and settlers from all over Israel and abroad to celebrate the week’s Torah study on Chayei Sara (Life of Sarah), where Abraham purchases the cave of Machpelah (which they think is in al-Khalil) in order to bury his wife Sarah. On Friday evening, a group of settlers coming from the illegal settlement Kiryat Arba attacked one of the two remaining Palestinian shops on their way to the Ibrahim Mosque in Hebron. The Israeli soldiers present did not prevent them from committing this crime.
Israeli security forces shot and killed Mohammad Zeidan, a Palestinian boy said to be 14 or 16, near Shu’fat checkpoint in Jerusalem Friday after he allegedly approached guards with a knife. He is the 241st Palestinian killed in the last 14 months of unrest characterized by lone knife attacks.
On Monday, Israeli security guards at Qalandiya checkpoint shot and killed Jihad Muhammad Said Khalil, 48, after he allegedly drew a knife and then engaged in a fistfight with a guard. He is the 240th Palestinian killed in the last 14 months in the series of lone-rebellions.
Haaretz reports: “Jerusalem’s zoning board is set to discuss a plan on Wednesday to build 500 homes in Ramat Shlomo, a Jewish neighborhood located over the Green Line in East Jerusalem. The plan was approved two years ago by the Jerusalem Planning and Building Committee, but was later suspended due to pressure from the U.S. In anticipation of the inauguration of Donald Trump as U.S. president in January, city officials have begun to ‘thaw’ building projects in the capital that had been ‘frozen.'”
Palestinian medical sources have reported that Mohammad Sa’id Abu Sa’da, 26, was killed on Friday evening, and three others injured, after Israeli soldiers stationed across the border fence opened fire on Palestinian protesters in central Gaza.
Reuters reports: Israel’s parliament gave preliminary approval on Wednesday to a disputed bill that would retroactively legalize Jewish settlement outposts built on privately owned Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank. The far-right Jewish Home party and members of Netanyahu’s Likud faction have pushed for the law, in part to try to circumvent a Supreme Court order to destroy the settlement outpost of Amona, where 40 families live on Palestinian-owned land. The demolition is set for Dec. 25.
Gideon Levy & Alex Levac report for Haaretz: It was a pogrom. The survivors are five congenial Palestinian farmers who speak broken Hebrew and work in construction in Israel, with valid entry permits. They are convinced that they survived last Saturday’s attack only by a miracle. “We will kill you!” the assailants shouted, as they beat the men over the head and on their bodies with clubs and iron pipes, and brandished serrated knives. The only “crime” of the Palestinians, who were in the midst of harvesting their olives when the settlers swooped down on them, was that they were Palestinians who had the temerity to work their land.
An Israeli planning committee approved a huge shopping center for settlers near Maccabim checkpoint, in occupied Palestinian territory. The Civil Administration seeks to build two additional shopping malls in the Al-Khalil (Hebron) area.