Palestinians say woman dies of wounds sustained in Israeli detention

Palestinians say woman dies of wounds sustained in Israeli detention
This picture shows the Ofer military prison located between Ramallah and Baytunia in the occupied West Bank city. (AFP/File)
Short Url
Updated 06 August 2024
Follow

Palestinians say woman dies of wounds sustained in Israeli detention

Palestinians say woman dies of wounds sustained in Israeli detention

JENIN, Palestinian Territories: A Palestinian woman died on Monday of wounds inflicted while she was held by Israeli forces two months ago, authorities in the occupied West Bank said.

“Former prisoner Wafaa Jarrar, 50, from Jenin... died Monday morning in Ibn Sina hospital in Jenin as a result of a very serious injury she sustained during her arrest,” the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs said.

Approached by AFP, the Israeli military said it was looking into the matter.

Jarrar, the wife of a leading Hamas figure in Jenin, was arrested on May 21 and subsequently placed in administrative detention, which allows for detention without charge for an extended period.

According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, a watchdog and advocacy group, Jarrar was released nine days after her arrest, despite being under administrative detention.

Following her release, she was taken to hospital where she remained unconscious until her death Monday morning.

Amani Sarahneh, spokeswoman for the Prisoners’ Club, told AFP Jarrar “died and her story was buried with her, as we don’t know exactly how she was wounded” while in detention.

The Commission and the Club both said in an obituary statement that Israel had committed a “crime” against Jarrar that led to the amputation of her legs above the knees in a hospital in the Israeli city of Afula.

The Prisoners’ Club said its lawyer had requested that Israeli authorities return her amputated legs and send her medical reports, but had not received a response.

It alleged that one of her legs had been amputated without the consent of her family.

Wafaa Jarrar was married to Hamas figure Abdul Jabbar Jarrar, who has also been under administrative detention for more than six months.

Since war broke out in October between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, tensions have soared in the occupied West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

At least 604 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops and settlers in the West Bank since October 7, according to an AFP tally based on official Palestinian figures.

At least 17 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed by Palestinian attacks in the West Bank over the same period, according to official Israeli figures.

Thousands of Palestinians have been detained in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, the United Nations human rights office said late last month.

They have mostly been held in secret and in some cases subjected to treatment that may amount to torture, the OHCHR said in a report.

Israel’s military has said its detention conditions are in line with international law.


Russia says it struck two Syrian militant sites

Russia says it struck two Syrian militant sites
Updated 22 sec ago
Follow

Russia says it struck two Syrian militant sites

Russia says it struck two Syrian militant sites
  • “Russian Aerospace Forces have struck two identified sites of militant who left the Al-Tanf zone,” RIA quoted Ignasyuk, who is also theputy head of the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria, as telling a briefing

DAMASCUS: Russia’s air force carried out strikes on two militant sites in Syria outside the area of Al-Tanf, Russia’s RIA state news agency reported on Sunday, referring to the region of a US military base.
Citing Captain Oleg Ignasyuk, the report did not specify the location but said the militants had recently left the Al-Tanf area, which borders Jordan.
“Russian Aerospace Forces have struck two identified sites of militant who left the Al-Tanf zone,” RIA quoted Ignasyuk, who is also theputy head of the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria, as telling a briefing.

 


Hezbollah says targets Israel army base near Haifa

Hezbollah says targets Israel army base near Haifa
Updated 18 min 56 sec ago
Follow

Hezbollah says targets Israel army base near Haifa

Hezbollah says targets Israel army base near Haifa
  • The group dedicated the attack to its leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs last month

BEIRUT, Lebanon: Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said early Monday it had targeted an Israeli military base near the northern city of Haifa, the third attack on a military position in the area in one day.
Hezbollah fighters launched “a salvo of Fadi 1 rockets at the Carmel base south of Haifa,” late Sunday the group said in a statement, having earlier reported two attacks on another base also south of Haifa. The group dedicated the attack to its leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs last month.
 

 


Hamas praises ‘glorious’ Oct 7 attack ahead of anniversary

Hamas praises ‘glorious’ Oct 7 attack ahead of anniversary
Updated 25 min 53 sec ago
Follow

Hamas praises ‘glorious’ Oct 7 attack ahead of anniversary

Hamas praises ‘glorious’ Oct 7 attack ahead of anniversary
  • At least 41,870 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza

DOHA: Palestinian militant group Hamas on Sunday praised its October 7 attack on Israel in a video message ahead of the first anniversary of the deadly storming of southern Israel which sparked the war in Gaza.
“The crossing of the glorious 7th of October shattered the illusions the enemy had created for itself, convincing the world and the region of its supposed superiority and capabilities,” Qatar-based Hamas member Khalil Al-Hayya said in a video statement.
Last year’s October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
At least 41,870 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The UN has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
Al-Hayya, said a year after the October 7 attack, “all of Palestine, particularly Gaza, and our Palestinian people are writing a new history with their resistance, blood, and steadfastness.”
The Hamas member, who has emerged as the Islamist group’s public face following the killing of its former leader Ismail Haniyeh in July, said Gazans had remained “resilient to all attempts at displacement... despite the kinds of torture and terrorism you have endured, and the horrific genocide and daily massacre.”


 

 


Iran’s Quds Force chief out of contact since Beirut strikes, Iranian officials say

Iran’s Quds Force chief out of contact since Beirut strikes, Iranian officials say
Updated 59 min 10 sec ago
Follow

Iran’s Quds Force chief out of contact since Beirut strikes, Iranian officials say

Iran’s Quds Force chief out of contact since Beirut strikes, Iranian officials say
  • The second Iranian official also said Qaani had traveled to Lebanon after the killing of Nasrallah and the Iranian authorities had not been able to contact him since the strike against Safieddine, who was widely expected to be the next Hezbollah chief

DAMASCUS: Iran’s Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani, who traveled to Lebanon after the killing last month of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike, has not been heard from since strikes on Beirut late last week, two senior Iranian security officials told Reuters.
One of the officials said Qaani was in Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as the Dahiyeh, during a strike that was reported to have targeted senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine but the official said he was not meeting Safieddine.
A Hezbollah official said Israel was not allowing a search for Safieddine to progress after it bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs on Thursday. The officials said the group would only announce Safieddine’s fate when the search concluded.
Safieddine is seen as a likely successor to Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Dahiyeh on Sept. 27.
The Iranian official said Iran and Hezbollah had not been able to contact Qaani, named by Tehran as the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps’ overseas military-intelligence service, or Quds Force, after the United States assassinated his predecessor Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.
Israel has been hitting multiple targets in Dahiyeh as it pursues a campaign against Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah.
The second Iranian official also said Qaani had traveled to Lebanon after the killing of Nasrallah and the Iranian authorities had not been able to contact him since the strike against Safieddine, who was widely expected to be the next Hezbollah chief.
Asked about reports that Qaani may have been killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut, Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said the results of the strikes were still being assessed.
He said that Israel had conducted an attack late last week against Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut.
“When we have more specific results from that strike, we will share it. There’s a lot of questions about who was there and who was not,” he told a briefing with reporters.
The Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, oversees dealings with militias allied with Tehran across the Middle East, such as Hezbollah.
Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Brig. Gen. Abbas Nilforoushan was killed with Nasrallah in his bunker when it was hit on Sept. 27 by Israeli bombs.

 


Fate of hostages in Gaza remains uncertain

Fate of hostages in Gaza remains uncertain
Updated 06 October 2024
Follow

Fate of hostages in Gaza remains uncertain

Fate of hostages in Gaza remains uncertain
  • Israel says 251 Israelis and people of other nationalities were seized and taken back to Gaza during the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7
  • A month ago, according to the latest Israeli assessment, about 100 were still in captivity, with at least 33 thought to be dead.

LONDON: The exact number and fate of the remaining hostages held in Gaza for the past year is still not clear.

In all, Israel says 251 Israelis and people of other nationalities were seized and taken back to Gaza during the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

Many were captured while they were attending the open-air Supernova music festival, where more than 360 people were killed during the Oct. 7 attack.

Several rescue attempts have been mounted by the Israeli military — some successfully, others with disastrous results.

In June, amid fierce fighting in which dozens of Palestinians were killed in the Nuseirat area of central Gaza, four Israeli hostages were rescued from two buildings in a raid by Israeli forces.

Another raid in the southern Gaza strip on Aug. 27 led to the rescue of a single hostage.

But three days later Israeli soldiers recovered the bodies of six hostages from a tunnel near Rafah in southern Gaza. Held by Hamas for almost 11 months, it is thought they were killed by their captors as Israeli forces closed in on their position.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group representing those held hostage in Gaza, accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “abandoning the hostages” by refusing to sign a ceasefire deal with Hamas.

“The delay in signing the deal has led to their deaths and those of many other hostages,” they said in a statement.

Further disaster struck in December when three hostages, mistaken for enemy combatants, were shot dead by Israeli soldiers.

Hopes that a permanent ceasefire in Gaza might be achievable were raised in November last year when about 100 hostages were released as part of a temporary truce negotiated by Qatar.

On Nov. 24, the first day of the ceasefire, 24 hostages were released — 13 Israelis, including four children, 10 Thais and one Filipino.

They were handed over to representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, who escorted them from Gaza through the Rafah crossing into Egypt. There they were met by medics and officers of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal intelligence agency, and flown by helicopter to hospitals in Tel Aviv.

A month ago, according to the latest Israeli assessment, 101 people, including four taken hostage in 2014 and 2015, were still in captivity. Of these, at least 33 are thought to be dead.

On Aug. 31, the Israeli army said it had found “a number of bodies during combat in the Gaza Strip,” prompting new accusations from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum that Netanyahu had abandoned the hostages.

Thousands joined rallies throughout Israel to demand that the prime minister sign a ceasefire-for-hostages deal.