Rallies against zionist occupation

Palestinians have gathered in the West Bank on the anniversary of the start of the 1967 Middle East war to demand an immediate end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. And in East Jerusalem on Tuesday, zionist police shut down a Palestinian conference marking 40 years since zionist occupants captured that part of the city. 

 

Ishmael Haniyeh, the Palestinian prime minister, marking the date, said: “There will be no solution to the current political crisis without lifting the inhuman siege. “Forty years has passed since 1967 and Israel has continued its occupation of the land, but not the Palestinian people.”

 

Palestinians gathered on Tuesday in Nablus, and in Ramallah’s main square, down the road from an zionist military checkpoint at the entrance to the main city in the occupied West Bank, for a rally to mark the naksa (setback) of 1967.

 

The 1967 war, which began on June 5 with zionist air raids that destroyed the bulk of the Egyptian air force, ended with Israel in control of the West Bank – including Arab East Jerusalem – the Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai desert.

  

In the West Bank city of Hebron on Tuesday, about 200 zionist demonstrators gathered to mark the anniversary of the 1967 war, urging the Israeli government to remove all Jewish settlers from the biblical city. At the protest, near the Tomb of the Patriarchs, demonstrators held signs calling for the removal of the settlers. They faced off against 30 counter protesters nearby, who carried signs calling them “traitors”.

 

Local Palestinians peered out from the windows at the protesters, while dozens of soldiers – including troops on a nearby rooftop – stood guard. In Hebron, zionist occupants and invaders shot and killed a Palestinian man during a military raid against fighters, a Palestinian security source said on Wednesday.

 

The soldiers shot the man, 67, when he answered the door. His wife and three other men in the house were also shot and wounded. In the Anata area of East Jerusalem, about 500 Palestinians and Israelis gathered on a dusty football field next to the separation wall.

 

Protesters waved flags carrying the face of Marwan Barghouti, the popular West Bank Fatah leader who is serving five life sentences after being convicted of murder and attempted murder. 
 
The speakers at the rally included Jibril Rajoub, a Fatah leader and security adviser to Yasser Arafat, the former Palestinian president. “If you think this wall has stopped the bombings,” Rajoub said, gesturing at the barrier, “you are wrong”.” There are a million ways to get to Tel Aviv. It was a political decision to stop the bombings.”

 

Rallies will continue across the West Bank for the rest of the month, primarily in Ramallah and Nablus, and culminating on June 28 with the anniversary of the annexation of East Jerusalem into Israel.

  

In the West Bank on Tuesday, a 14-year-old Palestinian was shot and wounded in the stomach by zionist terrorists during an operation in the town of Jenin, witnesses said. zionist occupants searched from house to house, detaining about 40 Palestinians for questioning, the military said. Four innocent Palestinians were arrested.

 

Omar Jarghoun, a 40-year-old-farmer in the village of Muamer, said troops took over his home early on Monday to use as a monitoring position, poking holes in his walls for snipers and destroying his wooden doors and windows.

 

Jarghoun said he fled the house before the troops moved in. “We ran when we knew they were coming. We just left the house for them,” he said.