The Electronic Intifada 5 January 2014
Palestinian youth throw snowballs at each other near Israel’s wall in Aida refugee camp in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, 14 December.
ActiveStillsThe year 2013 ended with 20,000 Palestinians under siege in Yarmouk camp near the Syrian capital of Damascus. The camp has been under siege by the Syrian army since the summer without access to food, medicine or other supplies; 15 Palestinians in the area have died of starvation since September, according to the United Nations. The UN estimates that more than half of the registered Palestinian refugee population in Syria is currently displaced.
In the occupied West Bank, an 82-year-old Palestinian man from the village of Yabad near Jenin died on 29 December after Israeli soldiers refused to allow him to reach a hospital for treatment of pneumonia, according to the UN. Israeli forces severely restricted movement to and from the village, conducted several search-and-arrest operations and damaged 100 olive trees in response to stone-throwing by village youth at Israeli vehicles.
A 24-year-old man died in Israeli detention after he was shot by Israeli forces during a raid on Jenin refugee camp on 18 December, and a 27-year-old Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli forces the next day during a similar operation in Qalqiliya, according to the UN. Meanwhile, an Israeli soldier shot and killed a 15-year-old boy in Jalazone refugee camp in Ramallah on 7 December.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that Israeli forces killed 28 Palestinians in the West Bank in 2013, including at least 22 civilians, while Palestinians killed three Israeli soldiers and two civilians. The year 2013 saw the highest number of child fatalities by Israeli forces in the West Bank since 2006.
Israeli forces conducted a weekly average of 75 search and arrest operations in the West Bank in 2013 and by the end of the year, approximately 10,700 Palestinian-owned trees, including saplings, were cut down or otherwise damaged by Israeli settlers across the West Bank, an approximate increase of 25 percent from 2012. Israeli forces demolished 662 Palestinian structures in the West Bank in 2013, displacing 1,100 persons, a 10 percent and 24 percent increase, respectively, from the equivalent figures during 2012, according to OCHA.
The occupied Gaza Strip witnessed one of the most serious episodes of violence since the November 2012 ceasefire after a suspected Palestinian sniper shot and killed a civilian carrying out repair works along the Israeli side of the fence along the boundary with Israel on 24 December. Israel carried out a series of air strikes and shelling on Gaza, hitting a home in Maghazi refugee camp and killing a three-year-old girl. Another 16 civilians were injured in the attacks. On 20 December, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian civilian and injured another man as the two were collecting scrap metal near the fence along the Gaza-Israel boundary.
According to OCHA, Israeli forces killed six Palestinian civilians in Gaza and injured a further 76 in 2013, the lowest number of casualties since the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000.
Gaza remained under siege at the close of the year; the shut-down of the Gaza power plant due to a lack of fuel has resulted in power cuts of up to 16 hours per day. Meanwhile, Rafah crossing, the sole point of entry and exit for the vast majority of Gaza’s nearly 1.7 million residents, was closed for 23 days during the month.
Palestinian activist Samer Issawi gives the victory sign as he is carried on the shoulders of supporters after his release from Israeli prison and his return to his home village of Issawiya in East Jerusalem, 23 December. Issawi was released as part of an agreement with the Israel Prison Service after he held a partial hunger strike for 266 days to protest his arrest.
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Family and friends of the Dahadgni family celebrate the release of Abu Naser Dahadgni in Shuafat refugee camp, East Jerusalem, 31 December.
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Yasin Abu Khudair, a released Palestinian prisoner, is greeted by relatives and friends upon his arrival at the al-Zaytouna crossing in East Jerusalem on 31 December. Abu Khudair is among 26 released prisoners who were jailed before the signing of the 1993 Oslo accords and have served 19 to 28 years for killing Israeli civilians or soldiers.
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Mourners carry the body of 15-year-old Wajih al-Ramahi during his funeral in the Jalazone refugee camp in the West Bank city of Ramallah, 8 December. Israeli troops shot the boy dead during early evening clashes in the camp the previous day.
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Palestinians carry the body of Palestinian worker Antar al-Aqraa during his funeral at Qabalan village near the West Bank city of Nablus, 2 December. A volunteer with the Israeli border police allegedly shot and killed al-Aqraa at a cemetery in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva while conducting a search for undocumented laborers.
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A relative carries the body of three-year-old Hala Abu Sbeikha during her funeral in the central Gaza Strip, 25 December. The girl was killed and at least six other persons were wounded in a series of Israeli air and artillery strikes on the Gaza Strip, medical sources said.
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A Palestinian boy sits on the rubble of his house in Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip after it was hit in an Israeli air strike, 25 December.
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Rainwater floods parts of Gaza City on 14 December. A fierce winter storm shut down much of the Middle East the previous day, burying Jerusalem in snow, flooding parts of Gaza and bringing frigid, wet weather to war-ravaged Syria.
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Palestinian rescue workers deliver aid to the residents in the flooded Sheikh Radwan area of Gaza City, 18 December. Four days of torrential rains in killed two people in the Gaza Strip and forced the evacuation of more than 5,000 residents from flooded homes, some accessible only by boat, officials said.
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Palestinian fishermen collect fish from their nets at the port in Gaza City on 17 December. Copious fish flowed to the coast of the Gaza Strip after four days of severe weather conditions in the coastal territory.
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Palestinian security forces are deployed to the northern West Bank city of Nablus, 2 December. Officials say hundreds of Palestinian forces have deployed in the Nablus district to reinforce the security presence and seek wanted Palestinian gunmen.
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Closed shops are seen during a protest against the storming of al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem during Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of light, on 4 December.
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A Palestinian health worker administers polio vaccine drops to a child during an anti-polio campaign in Gaza City on 9 December. The Minister of Health in the Gaza Strip announced that the ministry would vaccinate 300,000 children in line with the World Health Organization plan to stop polio outbreak by the year 2015.
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The emergency team of Shuafat refugee camp and Anata neighborhood undertake a drill in rescuing injured civilians from a disaster area in East Jerusalem, 27 December. The Emergency Peace Team was established a few months ago as a community response team, due to lack of emergency services in the Shuafat refugee camp and the surrounding neighborhoods.
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A Palestinian man inspects his house after it was raided by Israeli security forces in Askar, a neighborhood near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, 18 December. Israeli military jeeps raided several areas in the Nablus area and detained seven Palestinians.
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Palestinian youths observe the Dome of the Rock from Ubeidiya village, near the West Bank city of Bethlehem, 27 December. Palestinians from the West bank usually come to the village park to see the Dome of the Rock since they are not allowed by Israel to enter the city of Jerusalem.
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A Palestinian boy from the village of al-Mazraa al-Kubliyeh near the West Bank town of Birzeit plays on a swing as an Israeli settlement colony outpost built on land seized from the village is seen in the background, 3 December.
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Palestinians hold a demonstration outside UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City in solidarity with Palestinian refugees in besieged Yarmouk camp near Damascus, 29 December.
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Bedouins living in the Naqab (Negev) desert demonstrate in front of the Beer Sheva courthouse calling for the release of those arrested during a protest against the Prawer Plan, 5 December. The Prawer Plan, which the Israeli government has since put on hold, would forcibly transfer tens of thousands of Bedouins if implemented.
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Police try to push back African asylum-seekers and Israeli activists marching in central Tel Aviv in solidarity with asylum-seekers in detention and calling for recognition of refugee rights, 21 December. Police used pepper spray against the crowd and tried to violently arrest protesters as thousands took to the streets of Tel Aviv in one of the biggest demonstrations of refugees in Israel’s history.
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Omar Saad, a conscientious objector from the Druze religious minority community, plays the viola with his family members before entering the Tiberias induction base, where he stated his refusal to be drafted to the Israeli army, 4 December. Saad was since sent to military prison for refusing to serve in the army.
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Bethlehem-area activists hang tear gas grenades and other US-made crowd control weaponry used by the Israeli military in nearby Aida refugee camp on trees decorated for Christmas in Bethlehem’s Manger Square, West Bank, 2 December. The decorations in Manger Square and the Christmas season celebrations in Bethlehem are partly funded by the US government aid agency USAID. Activists aimed to raise awareness among the many tourists visiting Bethlehem during the holiday season that US military aid provides many of the weapons used by Israeli forces against the Palestinian people.
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Palestinians take part in a rally in the West Bank city of Jenin marking the 46th anniversary of the founding of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Palestinian Marxist revolutionary organization, 21 December.
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A Palestinian girl looks at a photo on display at the Room Four exhibition in Jerusalem on 5 December. The featured photos by the artist Ashraf Dowani reflect the suffering of Palestinian children who are brought to “Room 4” in the Russian Compound detention center for interrogation by Israeli intelligence agents.
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Bedouin youth ride horses next to their village, unrecognized by the state, in the Naqab (Negev) desert in the south of present-day Israel.
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Palestinian farmers harvest strawberries from a field in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on 10 December. Some 250 acres of strawberry crops are cultivated in these fields, yielding some 2,500 tons of fruit, some of which will be exported to European countries, helping Gaza’s stagnant economy.
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A Palestinian man plays with his grandchild at the Mediterranean Sea in Gaza City, 23 December.
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Palestinian students walk with their umbrellas under the rain in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, 31 December.
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