30 Palestinians killed, some 400 arrested in Israeli operations in August

[ 04/09/2011 - 07:30 PM ]

NABLUS, (PIC)-- The International Solidarity Foundation for Human Rights has released a report documenting that 30 Palestinians died and almost 400 were arrested last month in Israeli occupation operations in the occupied Palestinian territories. “Hardly a day goes by without observing killing and arrest operations on dozens of Palestinians, let alone the attacks by the [occupation state], its soldiers and its settlers against the Palestinians...,” the report says. While only three of those killed were from the West Bank, two of them in their early twenties, a total of 27 Palestinians were killed in mortar attacks and air strikes targeting the Gaza Strip that month. Five of them were under 18 years of age. During August, Israeli forces arrested more than 380 Palestinians, including 44 minors, in addition to dozens of Palestinian workers arrested beyond the green line. What made that month exceptional was that Israel launched one of the widest ranging arrest campaigns in the West Bank city of Al-Khalil in years, and it also carried out sweeps in Bethlehem, Jerusalem’s Silwan district, Tulkarem, Salfit, Ramallah, and Al-Beira. Among those arrested in August were Palestinian MPs Mustafa Mutlaq Abu Juheisha (Al-Khalil), Anwar al-Zabboun (Bethlehem), and Hassan Yousef - just one months after his release after six year stretch in detention. All of those MPs represent the Hamas party on the Palestinian Legislative Council. Another primary target were Palestinian news reporters. According to the ISFHR report, three journalists were arrested that month, including head of Al-Jazeera’s Afghanistan bureau Samer Allawi. He was arrested while departing to Jordan on Allenby Bridge after spending vacation with family members in the West Bank village of Sebastea.