Ma’an reports: “Israeli authorities carried out a large number of demolitions in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank on Tuesday, destroying two family apartment buildings, a classroom, a restaurant, four water cisterns, and parts of a home in the latest instances of a policy which rights groups have said has increased drastically in past months.”
Ma’an reports: “More than 1,000 Palestinian minors have been detained by Israeli forces since the beginning of the year, the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs said on Saturday, in a reported increase from 2015. The Committee said that at least 1,000 Palestinian minors between the ages of 11 and 18 had been detained by Israel since January, including around 70 children from occupied East Jerusalem who were placed under house arrest.”
Ha’aretz reports: “The key to Israeli defense firms not losing business under the new U.S. military aid deal will be to follow Elbit Systems and set up subsidiaries in the United States to bid for defense orders, industry officials said over the weekend. They were speaking days after the United States and Israel signed a 10-year memorandum of understanding that will provide Israel with $3.8 billion in annual grants. In the deal, Israel will no longer be entitled to spend 26.3% of the money – equal to around $815 million annually in recent years – in Israel.”
A video shot by Ma‘an News Agency videographer Mahmoud Abu Yousef shows an Israeli military sniper wounding 22-year-old Palestinian Muhammad Amassi during a raid on al-Fawwar refugee camp in the southern West Bank city of Hebron in mid-August. Amassi was standing on his roof talking on the telephone when the sniper shot him four times.
Israeli intelligence on Tuesday informed the family of Mustafa Nimir, who was shot dead by Israeli forces on Monday during a military raid on the Shu‘fat refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem, that the 27-year-old was “killed by mistake.”
Ma’an reports: “Israeli authorities returned the body of Palestinian Bahaa Elayyan on Thursday at dawn, allowing his family — which has been leading the movement advocating for Israel to release slain Palestinians’ bodies — to bury him 325 days after his death.”
Palestinian Authority security officers opened fire and shot tear gas canisters at the funeral of the leader of Fatah’s military wing, who was beaten to death in detention earlier this week by Palestinian security officers.
On Wednesday the Israeli military closed its investigation into four cases of mass killings of Palestinian civilians during the 2014 Gaza war. The military report found that in the four cases, which included the deaths of 49 people, the Israeli strikes were legal due to either mistakes, Hamas being responsible or an attack not happening at all.
In the village of Bil‘in in Ramallah, Israeli forces suppressed a weekly protest held in solidarity with hunger-striking prisoners. The protest was suppressed; but weekly protests in Bil’in have now been going on for 11 consecutive years.
Middle East Monitor reports: New data released by a United Nations agency and an Israeli NGO has confirmed that Israel’s blockade on the Gaza Strip actually tightened during July.