Haaretz reports that the company commander of Elor Azaria, the soldier on trial for shooting and killing a prone Palestinian assailant in Hebron, has become the target of threats since he testified in court last week against Azaria. A settler was arrested for an alleged death threat.
In occupied Yatta, Israeli forces raided the town and took measurements of Muhammad Moussa Makhamreh’s home, the father of suspected attacker Khalid Makhamreh, in preparations for a punitive home demolition expected to be carried out on Monday.
On Monday, Israel extended the administrative detention of Muhammad Faisal Abu Sakha, a 23-year-old Palestinian circus performer, in spite of widespread outcry from activists and rights groups around the world demanding his release. A statement released by the Palestinian Circus School, where Abu Sakha worked, said the Israeli occupation is “a system that knows no humanity,” whose only goal is “to break the spirit of an entire nation.” “You (the Israeli occupation) only make our resistance stronger. And the resistance of the Palestinian Circus School has always been and will continue to be injecting hope, love, and happiness in the hearts and minds of all Palestinians and all people that cross our path worldwide.”
On Thursday, Israeli bulldozers demolished the Palestinian Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Negev desert for the 99th time. A local resident told Quds Press that several Bedouin families became homeless again after Israeli bulldozers escorted by police forces stormed the village and razed all their homes.
An Israeli settler ran over a flock of sheep belonging to a Palestinian shepherd near the al-Zubeidat village in the occupied West Bank district of Jericho on Friday, causing the death of 25 of the sheep, according to Palestinian sources
During his trial for murdering a Palestinian in Hebron, Elor Azaria’s defense team has cast doubts on the video shot by Imad Abu Shamsiyah showing the execution. The opinion of an expert from the DIFS (Division of Identification and Forensic Science) says that B’Tselem’s videos are authentic.
Sunday June 5th marks the 49th anniversary of the day known to Palestinians as the ‘Naksa’ [‘setback’], the day that the Israeli military occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai peninsula. During the Naksa, around 300,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes, and became refugees. 49 years later, the military occupation continues.
Israeli soldiers invaded, Friday, Kufur Qaddoum town, in the northern West Bank district of Qalqilia, and assaulted the weekly protesters, wounding two siblings with live rounds. The army also sprayed many homes with wastewater mixed with chemicals.
On Tuesday, the Knesset “Land of Israel” caucus called to annex the major West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim, citing a poll showing nearly 78 percent of Israelis support the move. The push came in response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying he is open to negotiating based on the Arab Peace Initiative.
The lawyers representing the IDF medic who is charged in the killing of a wounded Palestinian in Hebron in March called yesterday for the return to Israel of Abdel Fattah al-Sharif’s body, which was released on Friday and buried by his family in Hebron on Saturday