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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Wednesday, May 6th, 2015.
Israeli settlers take over Palestinian homes in Jerusalem, meanwhile soldiers uproot trees owned by local farmers in West Bank communities. These stories, and more, coming up, stay tuned.
Members of the Israeli Ateret Cohanim settlement group invaded, on Wednesday at dawn, three apartments belonging to the Abu Nab Palestinian family, in the Central Neighborhood, in Silwan town in Jerusalem, and occupied them.
The group alleges Jewish residents owned the apartments before 1948, when Israel was established in the historic land of Palestine. The owners, all family members, left their apartments on Tuesday evening, to visit one of their brothers outside Jerusalem.
During the attack, cousins of the building’s owners, intercepted the settlers and clashed with them, especially when the assailants tried to blockade some windows, and sprayed the Palestinians with pepper-spray.
Elsewhere, Israeli soldiers, accompanied by military bulldozers, invaded Wednesday Palestinian agricultural lands in Souba area, in Ethna town, near the southern West Bank city of Hebron, and uprooted dozens of trees.
Residents said that military bulldozers uprooted dozens of trees, including olive trees, belonging to local farmers. The soldiers surrounded the area before declaring it a “closed military zone,” to prevent the residents from approaching, and uprooted the trees.
The Israeli army has been preventing the residents from farming and tending their lands in the area, and previously confiscated tractors and other agricultural equipment from the villagers, residents added.
Earlier Wednesday at dawn, Israeli soldiers kidnapped six Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including a woman who was leaving the Al-Aqsa Mosque, in occupied East Jerusalem.
In other news, a group of extremist Israeli settlers attacked, late on Tuesday at night, a Palestinian man, as he was near Sorra village, west of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
Media sources in Nablus said the settlers stopped a car driven by Rajeh Nasrallah, and sprayed his face with pepper-spray, while one of them tried to stab him. The Palestinian managed escape, while the extremists started throwing stones on him as he fled the scene, but were unable to injure him.
And that’s all for today from the IMEMC News; this was the Wednesday, May 6th, 2015 news round-up from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. For more news and updates, please visit our website at www.imemc.org. Today’s report has been brought to you by George Rishmawi and Ghassan Bannoura.
