Author

Yumna Patel

Browsing
An Israeli soldier detains a Palestinian boy in the Masafer Yatta area on March 10th, 2021. (Photo: B'Tselem)

On Wednesday, Israeli forces arrested five Palestinian children, ranging between the ages of 8 and 13, in the South Hebron Hills as they picked the seasonal wild flowers to bring back home to their families. Eyewitnesses say the children were first attacked by Israeli settlers, and then detained by Israeli soldiers at the settlers’ demand. “This was obviously an attempt by the settlers to intimidate the boys by using the soldiers,” eyewitness Basel Adrah tells Mondoweiss. “They didn’t steal or damage anything. All they were doing was picking akoub. Is this a crime?”

Palestinians wait to receive doses of the the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine provided by Israel's Magen David Adom medical services at the Qalandia checkpoint on February 23, 2021. (Photo: AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images)

Palestinian-Americans were turned back from an Israeli vaccination clinic at a checkpoint outside Ramallah because they held Palestinian ID cards, and the U.S. Embassy won’t help them. “It would be different if all U.S. citizens here were being treated the same,” Wafaa Jallaq tells Mondoweiss. “But when Israel, or being Israeli, is basically the distinction between who gets vaccinated and who doesn’t, that’s when it becomes frustrating. The U.S. has let go of its responsibility towards its citizens in the West Bank.”

The remnants of an EU funded bathroom in the village of Khirbet Humsah, which was completely demolished by Israeli forces on November 3rd, 2020. (Yumna Patel, Mondoweiss)

A new field report from Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq released this week details the numerous human rights violations that occurred throughout Palestine, particularly in the occupied West Bank, during 2020 — violations that the group said were exacerbated by, and spurred on, by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

This week will mark the one year anniversary since the first cases of the coronavirus were reported in Palestine, and a state of emergency was declared in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, where Palestine’s COVID-19 outbreak began. One year later Palestine’s COVID-19 nightmare seems to only be getting worse. Cases are surging in the West Bank, causing health officials to declare a third wave of the virus, as many hospitals across the territory reach maximum capacity.