Israeli forces arrested eight Palestinians from the occupied West Bank over the past 2 days despite the complete lockdown in place to combat the coronavirus, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club reported.
The group said in a statement that Israeli forces have continued with their arrest campaigns which target “patients, the elderly and children” despite the coronavirus pandemic ignoring warnings that the spread of the coronavirus would have dire consequences in jail.
The occupation forces arrest 7 citizens from the occupied West Bank, including the Jerusalemite MP Muhammad Abu Tair. pic.twitter.com/JOVuxOoWE0
— Palestinian Eve (@Palestinian_Eve) April 13, 2020
Among those detainees was a former member of the Palestinian parliament who has been deported from Jerusalem, Muhammad Abu Tair. The 68-year-old man has spent a total of nearly 34 years inside Israeli prisons.
According to the statement, the detainees are from the governorates of Ramallah and Al-Bireh, Qalqilya, Nablus, and Bethlehem.
Israeli forces on a regular basis storm Palestinian cities and villages in the occupied West Bank to arrest Palestinian popular activists.
#Israeli Forces Detain #Palestinian Teenager in #Hebron https://t.co/SGqIxuWrXN via @PalestineChron pic.twitter.com/fyO8EsojpF
— @palestinechron (@PalestineChron) April 14, 2020
On March 31, the Geneva-based Euro-Med Monitor urged the international community to protect Palestinians and force Israeli soldiers to stop incursions of cities and towns that threaten preventive measures taken by the Palestinian Authority to control the outbreak of coronavirus.
My book, "These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons" is available here https://t.co/KdigkXdznn #Palestine #Israel pic.twitter.com/I4bOUaGQ32
— Ramzy Baroud (@RamzyBaroud) April 10, 2020
It also called for investigating the suspicious behavior of a number of soldiers and Jewish settlers, which appeared to be an attempt to spread the infection and hold those responsible to account.
Ten new coronavirus cases were confirmed this morning in the West Bank, raising the total in Palestine, not including occupied Jerusalem, to 284, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
(Palestine Chronicle, MEMO, Social Media)
