The Israeli occupation confiscates large areas in the West Bank and launches a campaign to close schools
December 17, 2024
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, (OIC) Media Observatory for Israeli Crimes against the Palestinians has monitored the Israeli occupation army’s intensified targeting of schools housing displaced persons, especially in the northern Gaza Strip.
The OIC Observatory recorded, in an unprecedented manner, between December 10 and 16, 2024, the targeting of 7 schools, three of which were sheltering displaced persons (the A’ae;h al-Muqadassah, al-Majida Wasila, and Yafa) in Gaza City – north – as well as the bombing of Awidha School in Beit Hanoun, northeast of the Gaza Strip, and Ahmed Abdel Aziz School in Khan Yunis – center – and Abu Asi School affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), in addition to the bombing and burning of a school in Beit Lahia – north – and the eviction of the displaced from it.
The occupation forces also blew up buildings in northern Gaza, bombing municipality building in Deir al-Balah, and committed massacres in the Nuseirat camp and the tents of the displaced in Khan Yunis where the total number of massacres committed by Israeli occupation during the mentioned period amounted to (26) massacres.
Targeting of schools is aimed at terrorizing the displaced people in order to forcibly displace them from their places, at a time when Israel, the occupying power, has issued 66 orders for forced displacement for other areas in the Gaza Strip, covering 87% of Gaza, and including 150 residential neighborhoods, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, (OCHA) which confirmed that 80% of the Gaza Strip is still subject to these orders.
In the context of concealing its crimes, the occupation forces murdered journalists Mohammed Ba’alousha and Ahmed Al-Louh, and had also murdered journalist Mamdouh Qunaita two weeks earlier.
The OIC Observatory recorded (272) murdered in the Gaza Strip over the past seven days, and (845) wounded, while the number of Palestinian murdered from October 7, 2023 to December 16, 2024, reached (45,840), and the number of wounded reached (113,212).
In the West Bank and occupied al-Quds, the occupation forces murdered 5 Palestinians during the past period, arrested (185) others, and issued orders to confiscate lands in the town of Abu Dis in al-Quds, and other areas behind the separation barrier in Salfit, in addition to confiscating 54.79 dunums of lands belonging to the towns of Qatanna and Biddu located behind the separation barrier. Israel, the occupying power also confiscated lands for the expansion of a street extending from the “Gush Etzion” settlement, and other lands behind the separation barrier in the Khallet Semaan area to establish a bus station for Israeli settlers.
The occupation forces demolished (12) houses in al-Quds, Hebron, Bethlehem and Nablus, while Israeli settlers seized a house in the town of Silwan in al-Quds. The occupation army destroyed two water wells, electricity network, 15 barns and a warehouse in Nablus, Salfit and al-Quds, bulldozed agricultural lands and crops and destroyed irrigation networks near Hebron, Nablus and Jericho, and confiscated a bulldozer and an agricultural tractor in Ramallah and a roller and a water tanker in Hebron.
The Israeli occupation forces surrounded Al-Arroub Secondary School for Boys, in Al-Arroub camp in Hebron, and prevented the school’s students from entering before evacuating its teaching staff. Israeli occupation also evacuated the administration of Awarta Secondary School for Boys, and raided Jaba’ Secondary School for Girls. It also raided the campuses of Hebron University and Polytechnic University during their raid on the city of Hebron.
Meanwhile, the number of settler attacks on West Bank villages reached (38) recorded attacks in one week, where they stormed the Jabaris area, set fire to a residential room, sealed a water well.
In continuation of settler attacks, a settler ran over a Palestinian child in his vehicle in Nablus, others uprooted trees and cut other branches in the villages of Yasuf and Qarawat Bani Hassan in Salfit, Samou in Hebron, and Beit Furik in Nablus. They stormed agricultural lands and stole agricultural equipment, as well as 25 cows in the northern Jordan Valley, 17 sheep near Nablus, and 40 beehives in Tubas.
The OIC Observatory recorded 5 settlement activities in one week ranged from setting up tents and mobile homes on the lands of Bethlehem and Ramallah to expand their settlement outposts, and bulldozing lands owned by Palestinians with the aim of paving settlement roads, as well as, seized lands by squatting in the town of Adh Dhahiriya. Thus, the number of crimes committed by Israelis over 7 days only (2018) amounted to a violation that included all Palestinian areas.