RAMALLAH: Israel’s right-wing government on Friday was accused of stepping up its unprecedented campaign against Palestinian prisoners and their families in occupied Jerusalem.
Qadura Faris, chief of the Palestinian Prisoners Club, described the persecution as a “renewed catastrophe,” highlighting the Israeli confiscation of tens of thousands of dollars under the pretext of prisoners receiving undue funding from the Palestinian Authority.
Faris warned that the occupation had found “innovative ways” to expand its repression of Palestinians.
His remarks came as Palestinian sources confirmed that Israeli security authorities seized money from several Jerusalem convicts and their families on Thursday over fears that funding prisoners could incentivize violence ahead of Ramadan.
The sources said that Israeli authorities seized $33,370 from the bank account of liberated prisoner Iman Al-Aawar and her son, Mohammed.
Authorities also claimed $31,700 from the account of a mother of a freed prisoner, in addition to closing their bank accounts. The family was informed of the closure via a WhatsApp message.
The Israeli security forces also raided dozens of homes of prisoners and released prisoners in East Jerusalem, seizing money and valuables, and confiscating family bank accounts.
Sources said that the Israeli security forces stormed the homes of three Jerusalem prisoners, seized money, private property and jewelery, and vandalized the properties.
The targeting of prisoners and their families came after the Feb. 10 decision by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant, supported by both right-wing National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, to seize money from 87 prisoners and released prisoners in East Jerusalem.
Israel devised the policy of seizing funds from Jerusalem prisoners and ex-prisoners several years ago. The strategy is being vigorously implemented after the arrival of Yoav Galant, Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to the Israeli government in late December.
In January, the Israeli Ministerial Committee on National Security Affairs ordered the deduction of about $39 million of Palestinian Authority funds in order to allocate the money to Israeli victims of terrorism.
The Israeli Ministerial Committee also ordered the offsetting of welfare payments made by the Palestinian governments to prisoners in Israeli jails and the families of those killed by Israeli forces in 2022.
Galant, meanwhile, signed an order on Jan. 26 to seize $148,000 and a vehicle belonging to the families of released prisoners Karim and Maher Younis from the town of Ar’ara in the Northern Triangle, within Israel.
They had spent 40 years in Israeli prisons.
Israeli sources claimed that the money and the vehicle were obtained from stipends allotted to the prisoners by the Palestinian Authority.
Palestinian prisoners and their families are persecuted, harassed and routinely intimidated by Israeli authorities, who resent that the PA pays stipends to support families of the imprisoned, sources said.
The grant is similar to a social security payment, but Israel views it as an incitement for Palestinians to conduct attacks against Israel.
Ahmed Guneim, Fatah’s prominent leader in East Jerusalem, told Arab News that targeting prisoners’ money and property is a “catastrophic failure” of the Israeli government, which promised its people security.
Guneim added that extremist ministers were now resorting to “retaliatory measures” by “sending armed gangs to rob the homes of Jerusalemites, stealing their money, jewelry and property, and closing their bank accounts.”
He said: “This is an armed robbery. What is their evidence that the confiscated money, vehicles and jewelery belong to the prisoner personally?”
Guneim added that the repressive Israeli measures were a factor in rising tensions in East Jerusalem.
Israeli political analyst Yoni Ben Menachem told Arab News that Galant would target 300 Palestinian prisoners from East Jerusalem, up from the previous 87.
“The decision of the Israeli defense minister aims to combat Palestinian violence, because there is a belief among the Israeli security services that this money can be used to incite the Palestinians in East Jerusalem to launch an uprising to coincide with the beginning of Ramadan,” Ben Menachem told Arab News.
‘Armed robbery’: Israeli seizure of Palestinian prisoner funds condemned
https://arab.news/mw7eh
‘Armed robbery’: Israeli seizure of Palestinian prisoner funds condemned
- Occupation had found ‘innovative ways’ to expand its repression of Palestinians
- Israel devised policy of seizing funds from Jerusalem prisoners and ex-prisoners years ago
At least 6 Egyptian women die after vehicle slides off ferry and plunges into Nile River
The accident, which happened in Monshat el-Kanater town in Giza province, also injured nine other passengers, the Health Ministry said in a statement. Giza is one of three provinces forming Greater Cairo.
The ministry said six of the injured were treated at the site while three others were transferred to hospitals. It didn’t elaborate on their injuries.
Giza provincial Gov. Ahmed Rashed said the microbus was retrieved from the Nile, and rescue efforts were still underway as of midday Tuesday.
The cause of the accident was not immediately clear.
According to the state-owned Akhbar daily, about two dozen passengers, mostly women, were in the vehicle heading to work when the accident occurred.
Ferry, railway and road accidents are common in Egypt mainly because of poor maintenance and lack of regulations. In February, a ferry carrying day laborers sank in the Nile in Giza, killing at least 10 of the 15 people on board.
Syrian first lady Asma Assad has leukemia, presidency says
- Statement stated that Asma would undergo a special treatment protocol that would require her to isolate
DUBAI: Syria’s first lady, Asma Assad, has been diagnosed with leukemia, the Syrian presidency said on Tuesday, almost five years after she announced she had fully recovered from breast cancer.
The statement said Asma, 48, would undergo a special treatment protocol that would require her to isolate, and that she would step away from public engagements as a result.
In August 2019, Asma said she had fully recovered from breast cancer that she said had been discovered early.
Since Syria plunged into war in 2011, the British-born former investment banker has taken on the public role of leading charity efforts and meeting families of killed soldiers, but has also become hated by the opposition.
She runs the Syria Trust for Development, a large NGO that acts as an umbrella organization for many of the aid and development operations in Syria.
Last year, she accompanied her husband, President Bashar Assad ,on a visit to the United Arab Emirates, her first known official trip abroad with him since 2011. She met Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, the Emirati president’s mother, during a trip seen as a public signal of her growing role in public affairs.
Yemen’s Houthis say they downed US drone over Al-Bayda province
- The Houthis said last Friday they downed another US MQ9 drone over the southeastern province of Maareb
DUBAI: Yemen’s Houthis downed a US MQ9 drone over Al-Bayda province in southern Yemen, the Iran-aligned group’s military spokesperson said in a televised statement on Tuesday.
Yahya Saree said the drone was targeted with a locally made surface-to-air missile and that videos to support the claim would be released.
The Houthis said last Friday they downed another US MQ9 drone over the southeastern province of Maareb.
The group, which controls Yemen’s capital and most populous areas of the Arabian Peninsula state, has attacked international shipping in the Red Sea since November in solidarity with the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas militants, drawing US and British retaliatory strikes since February.
Iranians pay last respects to President Ebrahim Raisi
- Mourners set off from a central square in the northwestern city of Tabriz
- Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declares five days of national mourning
TEHRAN: Tens of thousands of Iranians gathered Tuesday to mourn president Ebrahim Raisi and seven members of his entourage who were killed in a helicopter crash on a fog-shrouded mountainside in the northwest.
Waving Iranian flags and portraits of the late president, mourners set off from a central square in the northwestern city of Tabriz, where Raisi was headed when his helicopter crashed on Sunday.
They walked behind a lorry carrying the coffins of Raisi and his seven aides.
Their helicopter lost communications while it was on its way back to Tabriz after Raisi attended the inauguration of a joint dam project on the Aras river, which forms part of the border with Azerbaijan, in a ceremony with his counterpart Ilham Aliyev.
A massive search and rescue operation was launched on Sunday when two other helicopters flying alongside Raisi’s lost contact with his aircraft in bad weather.
State television announced his death in a report early on Monday, saying “the servant of the Iranian nation, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi, has achieved the highest level of martyrdom,” showing pictures of him as a voice recited the Qur’an.
Killed alongside the Iranian president were Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, provincial officials and members of his security team.
Iran’s armed forces chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri ordered an investigation into the cause of the crash as Iranians in cities nationwide gathered to mourn Raisi and his entourage.
Tens of thousands gathered in the capital’s Valiasr Square on Monday.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has ultimate authority in Iran, declared five days of national mourning and assigned vice president Mohammad Mokhber, 68, as caretaker president until a presidential election can be held.
State media later announced that the election would will be held on June 28.
Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri, who served as deputy to Amir-Abdollahian, was named acting foreign minister.
From Tabriz, Raisi’s body will be flown to the Shiite clerical center of Qom on Tuesday before being moved to Tehran that evening.
Processions will be held in in the capital on Wednesday morning before Khamenei leads prayers at a farewell ceremony.
Raisi’s body will then be flown to his home city of Mashhad, in the northeast, where he will be buried on Thursday evening after funeral rites.
Raisi, 63, had been in office since 2021. The ultra-conservative’s time in office saw mass protests, a deepening economic crisis and unprecedented armed exchanges with arch-enemy Israel.
Raisi succeeded the moderate Hassan Rouhani, at a time when the economy was battered by US sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear activities.
Condolence messages flooded in from Iran’s allies around the region, including the Syrian government, Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
It was an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the devastating war in Gaza, now in its eighth month, and soaring tensions between Israel and the “resistance axis” led by Iran.
Israel’s killing of seven Revolutionary Guards in a drone strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1 triggered Iran’s first ever direct attack on Israel, involving hundreds of missiles and drones.
In a speech hours before his death, Raisi underlined Iran’s support for the Palestinians, a centerpiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Palestinian flags were raised alongside Iranian flags at ceremonies held for the late president.
Israeli army raids West Bank’s Jenin, Palestinians say seven killed
- Among the Palestinians killed was a surgical doctor, the head of the Jenin Governmental Hospital said
JENIN: Israeli forces raided Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday in an operation that the Palestinian health ministry said killed seven Palestinians, including a doctor, and left nine others wounded.
The army said it was an operation against militants and that a number of Palestinian gunmen were shot. There was no immediate word of any Israeli casualties.
The health ministry account of the casualties was quoted by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Among the Palestinians killed was a surgical doctor, the head of the Jenin Governmental Hospital said. He was killed in the vicinity of the hospital, the director said.
The West Bank is among territories Israel seized in a 1967 Middle East war. The Palestinians want it to be the core of an independent Palestinian state. US-sponsored talks on a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict broke down in 2014.
