JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Israeli settlers on Saturday carried out a number of attacks on Palestinians across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, witnesses told Ma’an.

In western Hebron, locals said that settlers attacked Palestinian homes near the illegal Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arbaa.

Settlers reportedly attacked the homes in Wad al-Hisn, spreading waste water and firing tear gas canisters. Israeli soldiers reportedly protected them.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian woman said armed Israeli settlers attempted to attack her and her family in the neighborhood of Jabal al-Mukabir in occupied East Jerusalem.

Yusra Zhayka told Ma’an that her family was on their way home when about a dozen Israeli settlers carrying guns appeared.

She said that she and her family were able to escape, but the settlers, who she believed were from the illegal Israeli settlement of Nof Zion, remained in the area.

She said that she had gone to Oz police station in Jabal al-Mukabir to tell them what had happened, but they refused to take her complaint, saying that there was no investigator present.

The past week has seen fierce clashes across the occupied Palestinian territory, with Israeli soldiers and settlers injuring more than 1,000 Palestinians since the beginning of the month.

Via Ma’an News Agency

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

AFP: “Israeli-Palestinian violence spirals with attacks, clashes”

Palestinian women cry during the funeral of Riham Dawabsha, on Sept. 7, 2015, at a cemetery in the West Bank village of Duma. (AFP/Thomas Coex)
NABLUS (Ma’an) — Thousands of Palestinians took part in the funeral of Riham Dawabsha, 27, who died overnight Sunday after succumbing to wounds she sustained more than a month ago in an arson attack on July 31 that killed her husband and 18-month-old son.

The funeral march set off from the entrance of Duma village in southern Nablus and proceeded to the village’s cemetery.

Dawabsha was given a military funeral as members of the Palestinian Authority security forces headed the march.

The 27-year-old mother of two was buried in the village’s cemetery, next to her husband and son who were laid to rest last month.

Dawabsha died hours after her birthday, on Sept. 6, while her husband died on Aug. 8, the couple’s wedding anniversary.

Mourners held Palestinian flags and the flags of Palestinian political factions in addition to signs demanding national unity, while others called for revenge and demanded the Israeli government find and hold the attackers accountable.

Thousands attend funeral for Riham Dawabsha, mother of slain Palestinian toddler, Sept. 7, 2015. (AFP)

Dozens of students from Jurish School for Girls, where Dawabsha worked as a mathematics teacher, took part in the funeral in addition to hundreds of teachers, as the Nablus Directorate of Education suspended the school day to give students and teachers a chance to take part.

The governor of Nablus, Akram al-Rujoub, the PA Minister of Education, Sabri Seidam, and representatives of national and Islamic factions took part in the funeral, in addition to members of the national and legislative councils and heads of PA institutions.

Israeli settlers smashed the windows of two homes in Duma, before throwing flammable liquids and Molotov cocktails inside, killing infant Ali, who was trapped inside the house, and critically injuring the other family members.

Following the incident, Israeli authorities arrested a number of extremist settlers without charge, but later released nearly all the suspects.

The perpetrators of the attack have still not been arrested by Israeli authorities.

Israeli settlers have carried out at least 142 attacks on Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank since the start of this year, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Only 1.9 percent of complaints submitted by Palestinians against Israeli settler attacks result in a conviction, the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din reported.

Via Ma’an News Agency

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

Levantine TV: “Day of Rage Planned After Palestinian Fire Bomb Victim Succumbs to Wounds

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — An Israeli Knesset member this week convened a meeting to stop Palestinians from “preventing the expansion” of Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s Subcommittee on Judea and Samaria — the biblical term used by the Israeli government for the occupied West Bank — convened to “discuss the efforts to prevent illegal Palestinian construction in Area C,” a Knesset press release said.

Committee head MK Mordhay Yogev of the far-right Habayit Hayehudi party said that while illegal construction was taking place in Jewish communities, such construction was happening at a far larger scale in Palestinian communities.

Palestinians living in Area C — around 60 percent of the occupied West Bank under full Israeli control — must apply for building permits to construct on their own land.

Such permits are rarely approved and Palestinian residents are forced to build illegally, while Jewish-only settlements are constructed and protected by the Israeli government in the same areas.

Yogev added: “Illegal Palestinian construction takes place unsupervised, and a large part of it is being funded or aided by European countries and international organizations.”

The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Yoav Mordechai rejected claims that his office was failing to curb illegal Palestinian construction.

Mordechai said that he had recently appointed a general to “promote dialogue with Bedouins…with the goal of regulating their communities in the region.”

”Progress has already been made because the Bedouins realize that we are serious,” he added.

Yogev’s Habayit Hayehudi party has openly rejected a future Palestinian state and promotes settlement expansion across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The party — which holds significant sway in Israeli PM Netanyahu’s government — has also propagated a plan to forcibly relocate tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouins.

The displacement plans sparked outcry from the international community and rights organizations, who often provide aid and structures to Bedouins deprived of basic rights by Israeli authorities.

Yogev alleged in the Knesset meeting that so-called illegal Palestinian construction is “part of a strategic Palestinian plan aimed at creating facts on the ground and preventing the expansion of Jewish communities such as Maale Adumim.”

Plans to demolish Palestinian Bedouin structures in the Jabal al-Baba were pushed earlier this month, which if carried out would enable the expansion of the Maale Adumim settlement.

Maale Adumim is home to around 36,000 Israeli settlers. Its boundaries cover 48,000 dunams (11,861 acres), and it is one of several settlements established on Palestinian territory after Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and West Bank in 1967.

The Israeli government provides separate systems of infrastructure for those living in settlements, connecting over 500,000 settlers to roads, electricity, water, and sewage systems that remain inaccessible to neighboring Palestinians and make a contiguous Palestinian state impossible.

Last month marked the 10 year anniversary of the unilateral disengagement by Israel from settlements in the Gaza Strip.

In response to criticism of the disengagement that resurfaced, MK Basel Ghattas said: “There are two contradicting values — freedom and democracy versus colonialism and occupation. It was only natural to correct the injustice and evacuate the settlements from the Gaza Strip.”

He added: “The question is what to do with the tens of thousands of settlers in Jerusalem and the territories. Why are they not joining the Gaza evacuees?”

Via Ma’an News Agency

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

Euronews: “Palestinian vigilantes patrol West Bank villages to deter attacks by Jewish settlers”

Thousands of Palestinians participated, on Saturday evening, in the funeral procession and ceremony of Sa’ad Dawabsha who died Saturday of serious burns and injuries resulting from the Israeli terrorist attack on his family home, leading to the death of his baby, Ali, ten days ago.

Dawabsha’s body was moved from an Israeli hospital to the northern West Bank city of Nablus, before being sent to his village, Douma, where his funeral and burial ceremonies were held.

Thousands of Palestinians gathered while the body of the slain Palestinian was on its way to his village, and then participated in the funeral along with dozens of Palestinian political and security leaders, civil-society figures and Arab members of Israeli Knesset.

Ali, the 18-month of age baby, was burnt to death in the terrorist attack on his family home, while his mother Reham, 27 years of age, suffered burns to 90% of her body, and his brother Ahmad, 5 years of age, suffered second-degree burns to 60% of his body.

Palestinian Government spokesperson Ehab Bseiso said, “Extremist Israeli colonizers have carried out 11.000 attacks against unarmed Palestinians and their property, including burning and defacing twenty mosques and five churches.”

Bseiso added, “The Israeli government continues to encourage those crimes by its ongoing incitement, the approval of dozens of thousands of units in its illegal colonies in the occupied West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, and the escalating destruction of Palestinian homes, lands and even entire villages, such as Susiya village near Hebron.

Via IMEMC

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

Euronews: “Arson attack: young father buried next to baby son in West Bank”

JERUSALEM (Ma’an) –The leader of a Jewish extremist group in Israel allegedly called for arson attacks on churches in front of Israeli students, Israeli media reported on Thursday.

Benzi Gopstein, leader of anti-Arab group Lehava, allegedly called for the burning of churches at a panel held this week for Jewish yeshiva students, using ancient Halachic, or Jewish law, to condemn what he called Christian “idol worship.”

When a journalist at the panel informed Gopstein that he was on camera and could be arrested for his comments, Gopstein said he is prepared to spend 50 years in jail for his remarks, according to a video of the panel released by the Haredi website Kikar Shabbat.

After the release of the video, Gopstein said he “stressed several times” that he was “not calling to take operative steps,” instead he said that it is “the responsibility of the government, not of individuals” to abolish the Christian practice of idol worship.

The Israeli government has taken steps to crack down on Jewish extremism over the past week, after suspected Jewish extremists torched two West Bank homes, burning an 18-month-old infant alive and critically injuring the baby’s mother, father and brother.

Three right-wing extremists were arrested on Tuesday in connection to the arson under an administrative detention order after Israel’s security cabinet approved the use of the measure on Jewish Israelis. The arrests marked the first time a Jewish Israeli has ever been held under the policy of administrative detention.

There has been a long line of attacks on Christian and Muslim holy places in both Israel and the occupied West Bank in which the perpetrators were believed to be Jewish extremists.

Despite announcements by the Israeli government in May 2014 to crack down on violent attacks carried out by Israelis against Palestinians, prosecution rates on Jewish extremist remain remarkably low.

Via Ma’an News Agency

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Related video in Spanish added by Juan Cole:

Annur Latino: “Un Rabino llama a quemar las iglesias en Palestina ocupada”

NB: didn’t find an English-language clip on this incident & figured many readers can follow the Spanish.

Striking photo of Palestinians shielding Israeli policewoman from stones thrown by settlers. https://t.co/gburzyw8jP pic.twitter.com/8N6hDqgaFl

— Gregg Carlstrom (@glcarlstrom) August 2, 2015

N.B. A reader wrote in to say that they were protecting her from Palestinian stone-throwers, not settlers.

As Israeli investigators release their findings that a right-wing Jewish terrorist network is gaining power throughout Israel and illegal West Bank settlements, an arrest has been made in the arson attack Thursday night that burned a baby to death and severely wounded his mother, father and 4-year old brother.

The alleged arsonist, who smiled and joked as he was taken into custody, is 24-year old Meir Ettinger, the grandson of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was known for his racism and incitement against Arabs, as well as direct involvement in violent racist attacks.

His arrest came five days after the attack, and is the only one so far, despite eyewitness accounts that at least four men were seen running from the village after setting the house on fire with a firebomb and spraypainting it with racist graffiti.

As Meir Ettinger was taken into custody, police investigators told reporters from Ha’aretz newspaper that they suspect the involvement of a right-wing network that is based in Yitzhar settlement, in the northern West Bank, and has planned and carried out dozens of terror attacks against Palestinians.

The group is also suspected of carrying out the arson that burned the Church of the Loaves and Fishes, a holy site for Christians, late last year.

Via IMEMC

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

RT: “18-month-old Palestinian baby arson killing sparks public anger, Israeli president receives threats”

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Thousands of Palestinians on Saturday attended the funeral of Laith al-Khaldi, 17, who was killed by Israeli forces during clashes near the Atara military checkpoint in northern Ramallah the previous night.

Al-Khalidi was at least the 20th Palestinian to be killed by Israeli forces since the start of 2015, not including those killed in attacks by Israeli settlers or prisoners who died while in Israeli jails.

Via Ma’an Images

The funeral procession began at the Ramallah hospital where al-Khaldi’s body was being held and proceeded towards the al-Jalazone refugee camp where the teen was born.

Mourners condemned Israeli crimes against Palestinians.

Al-Khaldi was shot in the chest by Israeli forces after allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail at the checkpoint’s army post.

The 17-year-old later died from his injuries after undergoing two surgeries.

Several other Palestinians were injured with rubber-coated steel bullets during clashes near the checkpoint at the time.

Clashes broke out across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank on Friday night in response to the death of an 18-month-old Palestinian who was burned alive in an arson attack carried out by suspected Israeli settlers earlier that day.

Earlier Friday evening Israeli forces also shot dead 17-year-old Mohammad Hamid al-Masri in the Gaza Strip near the buffer zone, along with another Palestinian who was shot and moderately injured.

Four Palestinians were killed by live Israeli fire in July alone, in addition to the 18-month-old baby left dead by the Israeli settlers’ arson attack.

The mother and father of the infant are still in critical condition in Israeli hospitals.

Shortly after the attack senior PA official Riyad al-Maliki rejected Israeli condemnations of the incident as hollow.

“We refuse to accept any official Israeli condemnation of the terrorist crime; they hold direct responsibility for the crime by their ongoing silence and deliberate ignoring and rejection of labeling these groups as terrorists,” al-Maliki said.

“The arson attack was a clear reflection of the “incitement and hatred” against Palestinians that the Israeli government portrays daily in its policies, decisions and laws, al-Maliki added.

Palestinian leadership is currently pursuing charges against Israeli for war crimes in the International Criminal Court as rights groups argue Israel’s investigative mechanisms are not capable of carrying out credible investigations into alleged violations of international law.

Via Ma’an News Agency

RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — The Palestinian Justice Ministry autopsy confirmed that the 18-month-old Palestinian who was killed in an arson attack on Friday was burned alive.

Minister of Justice Salim al-Saqqa said there was soot inside of the baby’s body, which indicates he was alive when his body caught fire.

al-Saqqa said the baby’s body was completely blackened, his features had melted, parts of his extremities disintegrated from the burns, while parts of the lungs and rib cage had melted.

The infant was killed when suspected Israeli settlers smashed the windows of two homes in Duma village near Nablus, throwing flammable liquids and Molotov cocktails inside and catching the homes ablaze.

The infant, Ali Saad Dawabsha, was trapped inside the family’s home as the fire spread and died shortly after.

His parents and four-year-old brother were left with severe burns.

The mother was in critical condition with third-degree burns covering 90 percent of her body, an Israeli doctor told public radio. The father had burns on 80 percent of his body and the son 60 percent, with all of their lives in danger.

Via Ma’an News Agency

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

Aljazeera English: ” Funeral held for Palestinian baby killed in arson attack”