Occupation forces imposed closure on the Palestinian village Burqa, blocked road 60 to Palestinian traffic and wounded dozens of Palestinian protestors, due to a settlers’ march to the dismantled outpost of ‘Homesh’ – the marchers finished up by invading Burqa, desecrating gravestones, hurling stones and wounding an elderly villager; A settler’s dog attacked Palestinian shepherds in Hamra – the shepherds and 3 activists protecting them were arrested; A settlers’ gang attacked and wounded Palestinian shepherds in En Al Hilwa – 3 Palestinians were hospitalized and 4 arrested, the assailants are fine; Terrorists from ‘Mitzpe Yair’ outpost blocked the road to Bir Al Eid with boulders, decorated with slur graffiti (“Death to Arabs”) – activists cleared the blocking despite the army’s efforts to prevent them; Dozens of settlers accompanied by soldiers and policemen raided roads and Palestinian villages in Massafer Yatta all through Friday and Saturday, searching Palestinian cars, homes and pens for supposedly stolen sheep; Occupation forces shot to death Mohammad Abas from Al Am’ari refugee camp; Leftist activist wounded by a sponge bullet fired at her face as she documented the weekly demonstration in Beita village; Jerusalem police under Deputy Inspector Hazut again attacked protestors in Sheikh Jarrah with stun grenades, arresting three activists

photo: A settler’s dog attacking a Palestinian shepherd at Hamra, the Palestinian Jordan Valley, Friday, December 24, 2021

South Hebron Hills
A villager of Mufaqara and his son, whom the Israeli army prevented from plowing their land and confiscated their tractor last week, were summoned for questioning on Sunday. That night, settlers from ‘Avigail’ were seen planting trees on the plowed Palestinain land. On Wednesday, a Mufaqara villager discovered that ten olive trees in his grove had been cut down.
On Monday, December 20, settlers again blocked the road to Bir Al Eid with boulders. They also decorated the rocks along the way from ‘Mitzpe Yair’ outpost with graffiti, ‘Death to Arabs’. On Saturday, activists came to clear the boulders, that were larger and heavier than ever. An army force tried to prevent the activists from doing so on false grounds (claiming, among other things, that using the road on the Sabbath would ‘anger the settlers’), but the activists insisted and managed to clear the rocks.
Large forces accompanied by heavy equipment arrived at Fawar junction on Wednesday, December 22, demolished and confiscated farm produce stands and dug a deep trench alongside the road in order to prevent Palestinians from putting up their stands anew.
On Friday, gangs of settlers raided Palestinian villages in the Massafer Yatta area (firing zone 918), stopped and searched vehicles, harassed shepherds and invaded homes and sheep pens, claiming they were searching for a flock of sheep that had been stolen from them. Later that day, police and army forces joined some 60 settlers in their raids. The ‘search’ continued the next day, Saturday, all day.
On Friday, activists joined plowing work at the Sumud park in Tawane, that had suffered repeated damage by settlers. On Saturday, terrorists from ‘Havat Maon’ arrived at the outskirts of Tawane, swearing and threatening, and another gang went down to a water hole in a Palestinian field officially closed to Israelis. Activists who arrived managed to make the army distance them.
On Saturday, activists also accompanied the Palestinian landowner in Umm Al Arais and shepherds in Atariya, without any special events.

Palestinian Jordan Valley
Two settler terrorists riding an ATV from an outpost near Hamra harassed Palestinian flocks and shepherds, and their dog attacked the shepherds. Activists arriving there managed to distance the settlers, who then summoned the ‘security forces’, and these detained the 3 activists and the 2 Palestinians, who were blindfolded and taken apart. Two of the activists were released with a distancing order after questioning, and one refused, remained in custody and was released on self-bail Saturday night. The Palestinian shepherds are still under arrest.
On Saturday, December 25, it was reported that Jewish terrorists attacked Palestinian shepherds in En Al Hilwa and wounded 3 of them, who suffered severe fractures and were removed to hospital. According to the report, the occupation forces joined the attackers and arrested 4 Palestinian shepherds, while none of the assailants were arrested.
During the rest of the week, activists accompanied Palestinian grazing in Khalat Makhoul, Samra, Hamra, Auja and Farisiya, unhampered.
On Sunday, the occupation forces confiscated a tractor that was used for plowing in Afarisiya.

Jerusalem
Instructed by the Minister of Homeland Security Omer Bar-Lev (Labour party), Jerusalem police dispersed a meeting of Palestinian businessmen in East Jerusalem on Sunday, December 19.
In protest of the accelerating apartheid policy in East Jerusalem, home demolitions and eviction of Palestinian families from their homes in favor of settlers’ associations, ‘eviction orders’ were posted on doors of hundreds of homes in the western part of the city on Wednesday. The story of the Salem family facing eviction from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah was printed on the back side of these ‘orders’.
The Jerusalem police, commanded by Deputy Inspector Ronen Hazut, violently attacked demonstrators during the weekly protest vigil in Sheikh Jarrah on Friday. The police threw stun grenades into the crowd, grabbed Palestine flags and arrested three protestors who were kept in custody until Saturday evening. A protest vigil was held Saturday opposite the women’s prison Neve Tirtza, where the two arrested women were taken. Another demonstration took place at the Russian Compound that evening during their arraignment. The police kept the arrested women from getting to this session in an attempt to convince them to sign a distancing order, in order to avoid discussion of the false arrest, but the activists refused. The judge Michal Hirschfeld ruled to free the three activists held in custody, but distance them from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood for a week, without referring to the false arrest.
On Tuesday, occupation forces demolished a dwelling in the Jabal Mukabar neighborhood.
The weekly protest in Sheikh Jarrah takes place every Friday. We will meet at the Sheikh Jarrah Garden, Nablus Road and Dahlmann St. at 3 p.m

Throughout the West Bank
Jewish terrorists stoned a family home in Ramoun village (Tul Karm district) during the night between Saturday and Sunday, December 19.
On Thursday, the occupation army lay closure on Burqa village (Nablus district) and blocked road 60 to Palestinian traffic, raising roadblocks at the exits from Palestinian villages all along the road, in order to enable about 1500 settlers to hold a march to the site of the dismantled settler-colony ‘Homesh’. Settler terrorist gangs then raided Burqa, threw stones at houses, desecrated gravestones in the cemetery and wounded an elderly Palestinian who was hospitalized.
The same day, Israeli soldiers killed Mohammad Abas, 26-years old from the refugee camp of Al Am’ari (Al Bireh, Ramallah district) with live ammunition.
During the clashes around the settlers’ march to ‘Homesh’, occupation soldiers wounded 68 Palestinians from Burqa: 3 with live fire, 10 with rubber-coated steel pellets, and the rest with teargas. Saturday evening, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported another 10 wounded persons by live fire, among them one badly wounded, 48 lightly wounded with rubber-coated ammunition, and another 185 people hurt by teargas.
On Friday, during the weekly protest vigil against landgrab in Beita village, the occupation soldiers wounded several demonstrators, among them leftist activist and B’Tselem’s foreign relations coordinator Sarit Michaeli, who was shot in the face with a sponge projectile while documenting the vigil.
On Tuesday, December 21, the occupation forces demolished 2 structures in Nahalin (Bethlehem district).