Days of Palestine – Ramallah
The Israeli occupation forces launched on Tuesday night and at dawn Wednesday a campaign of raids and arrests in various areas of the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Abdul Azim Wadi, the activist in the Popular Resistance in Qasra town, said that Israeli occupation forces stormed his house and his brother Khalil's house, searched them and tampered with their contents.
He added that Israeli occupation forces soldiers arrested two Palestinians, 30 and 23 years of age, after they raided their homes.
Meanwhile, Fuad Maali, the mayor of Beita, confirmed that Israeli occupation forces broke into several houses in the town and searched them, and arrested Qassam Al-Jaghoub from his home.
In Hebron, local sources reported that Israeli occupation forces arrested two Palestinian citizens. Hussam Tayseer Rabei was also arrested after Israeli occupation forces raided his home. Israeli occupation forces stormed several houses in Yatta town.
Israeli occupation forces arrested Imad Ahmed Jadallah, 26, after they summoned him for an interview with its intelligence agency in the Taramah area, southwest of al-Khalil, according to the sources.
In Occupied Jerusalem, the Israeli police arrested Abdul Rahman Al-Bashiti from his house in the Old City and took him to the investigation center in Al-Maskobiyya.
In Jenin, local sources and the Prisoner Society said that Israeli occupation forces arrested a citizen from Al-Hashimiya village and another one from Qabatiya town after they broke into their families’ houses and searched them.
Furthermore, Israeli occupation forces stormed Al-Jalameh village, northeast of Jenin, and raided the male school there and seized the recording of the surveillance camera after they detained the school's guard, Shaaban Othman, and interrogated him while preventing the school director and teaching staff from entering it.
Local sources said that Israeli occupation forces arrested two Palestinian citizens, who are still unidentified, after they stopped the vehicle in which they were traveling near Nabi Saleh village in the north.
Meanwhile, Israeli special force kidnapped Yasser Darwish, near the Atara military checkpoint, north of Ramallah, according to the sources.
Al-Haq and Defence for Children International (DCI)/Palestine Section wrote to draw the International community's attention to Israeli occupying forces current practice of night-time raids on Palestinian homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
These raids subject Palestinian civilian residents of the houses, including women, children and the elderly, to confinement in one room for prolonged periods of time.
Although this unlawful practice has been used since the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, the new home invasions reflect an intensification of this practice throughout the West Bank during the last few months.
Whilst some of these incidents took place during larger Israeli military offensives, the documentation indicates that there is no indication that residents of these homes constituted a threat to the soldiers lives.
Affidavits show that home raids are generally conducted at night-time or during the early morning hours (between midnight and 5:00 am).
In the majority of cases, residents were woken up by sudden heavy banging on their doors. Those who initially refused to let the soldiers enter were forced to do so once soldiers attempted to break in through windows and doors.
Most cases involve groups of up to 20 camouflaged Israeli soldiers who round up all family members and confine them regardless of their number in a single room for extended periods of time, amounting to several hours and in some instances days.
International humanitarian law prohibits attacks against the civilian population and civilian objects.
Parties to the conflict must at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants, and between civilian objects and military objectives, and direct their operations only against the latter.
Article 58 of Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, reflective of customary international law, provides that Israel must also endeavour to remove individual civilians and civilian objects under its control from the vicinity of military objectives; and take the other necessary precautions to protect the civilian population against the dangers resulting from military operations.
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