In the pre-dawn hours of Thursday, February 4, several units of Israeli soldiers stormed Beit Ommar, invading several houses and forcing women and children out into the rain, some standing for several hours. In the end, 9 men were arrested:

Murshid Muhammad Murshid Al-Aqeed, 35
Ayesh Ahmad Murshid Za’aqeeq, 23
Rami Bassam Khalil Za’aqeeq, 32
Muhammad Bassam Khalil Za’aqeeq, 20
Murad Amer Ahmad Abu Juda, 21
Muhammad Amer Ahmad Abu Juda, 20
Sharif Fathi Muhammad Brageith, 22
Ashraf Ali Khalawy Sabarna, 27
Jihad Khalawi

This makes a total of 16 people arrested from Beit Ommar in the last 2 weeks alone. We know that several of the previously arrested youth were taken directly to Al Mascobieh (Russian Compound), usually reserved as an Israeli intelligence interrogation center. No … Continue reading

Update: Preliminary research done by Peace Now has revealed that the area in which farmers from Saffa planted trees (to replace what was destroyed by settlers from Bat ‘Ayn) that the Israeli military announced it would uproot last week was not registered as Israeli ‘state land’ in the 1970′s as they previously claimed. They are, however, in the process of declaring it state land, a legal maneuver to confiscate the land from the Palestinians who have been using it since the before the creation of the state of Israel.

Update February 1, 2010: Farmers Prevented from Accessing Land Ahead of Uprooting

On Saturday, January 30, a group of farmers from Beit Ommar and Saffa, including those from the Thalji family whose … Continue reading