The Palestine Chronology

In the West Bank, Israeli forces delivered a punitive demolition notice for a house in Silat al-Harithiya belonging to a family in which 2 are charged with the killing of 1 Israeli settler on 12/20/2021 near the Homesh settlement outpost. Israeli forces razed a tract of land in Jalud in preparation for expanding the nearby Ahiya settlement. 11 Palestinians were arrested during house raids in Qabatiya, Qalandia, al-Ram, ‘Azzun, Beit Fajjar, Biddu, and Beit ‘Anan. In Gaza, Israeli forces opened fire at agricultural lands east of Khuza‘a; no injuries were reported. (WAFA, WAFA, WAFA 1/20; MEMO 1/21; PCHR 1/27)

Palestinian Israeli Bedouins in several Naqab villages said they had been experiencing prolonged electricity blackouts for 2 weeks. The Israeli Electricity Corporation (IEC) blamed the blackouts on cold weather and illegal electricity hookups. In a recording of a conversation between an IEC representative and a resident, the representative is heard saying that the Israeli police is preventing them from conducting work to mend the situation, a claim the Israeli police denies. (HA 1/20)

The UN agencies UNWRA, UNICEF, and OHCHR called on Israel to release 1 Palestinian teenager held on administrative detention who is seriously ill due to an autoimmune disease and has been held without charges for more than 1 year. (MEMO, WAFA 1/20)

16 Palestinian Israeli Bedouins were indicted for alleged crimes committed during protests against a forestation program meant to displace Bedouins in the Naqab last week. A total of 155 protesters were arrested over several days of protesting. The protesters are accused of throwing stones and burning tires. (HA 1/20)

A PA court in Nablus sentenced 1 Palestinian journalist to 3 months in prison for defaming the PA. (MEMO 1/21)

PA foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki criticized the U.S. Biden administration for not working to reverse the Trump administration’s one-sided policies against Palestinians during a meeting at the UN security council. Foreign Minister al-Maliki also called on the U.S. to pressure Israel into reversing its rejection of a 2-state solution. Al-Maliki also said that the EU, UN, and Russia had agreed to a ministerial meeting about the Palestinian-Israeli situation but that the U.S. had not. Israeli ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan accused al-Maliki of ignoring “terror attacks” by Palestinians, holding up a stone that allegedly had been thrown at Israeli forces. (AP, HA, WAFA 1/20)

PA prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh, during a meeting with UN humanitarian coordinator in Palestine Lynn Hastings, urged the international community to pressure Israel to release tax funds withheld from the PA. (WAFA 1/20)

Former Israeli soldiers acknowledged that there is a mass grave of Palestinians killed during the Nakba in 1948 on a beach in the depopulated village of Tantura, where Israeli forces and militants massacred Palestinian prisoners of war. The Israeli government has denied the existence of the mass grave despite it being published in a thesis in 2000. The mass grave site is now a parking lot for the Dor beach built on the depopulated village. The PA foreign ministry called for an international investigation into the massacre aimed at punishing Israeli officials and institutions covering crimes committed by Israel. (HA 1/20; WAFA 1/21; AJ, JDF, WAFA 1/22)

Israel and Germany signed a deal for Israel to buy 3 submarines from the Germany company ThyssenKrupp. Germany agreed in 2017 to cover $680 million of the price Israel will have to pay. ThyssenKrupp recently raised the price of the submarines from $2 billion to $3.4 billion. (ALM, AP, HA, MEMO, REU 1/20)

Israeli Channel 13 aired a program showing NSO Group employees training Ghanaian officials in using NSO’s Pegasus software. Ghana’s government bought the Pegasus software in 2016 to use against political opponents ahead of the 2017 elections. (HA 1/20)

In the West Bank, Israeli forces shot and injured 1 Palestinian with live ammunition before arresting him during a raid in Dahariya. 11 others were arrested during late-night raids in Ramallah, Burqa, Qabatiya, Biddu, Fawwar refugee camp, and Dheisheh refugee camp; Israeli forces injured 2 Palestinians during the raid in Dheisheh refugee camp with rubber-coated bullets. In East Jerusalem, Israel authorities continued its work to demolish al-Yusufiya cemetery, making room for a public park. 2 were arrested during raids in Silwan. (WAFA 11/2; MEMO, WAFA 11/3; PCHR 11/4)

Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah rejected a “compromise” deal offered by the Israeli supreme court to allow them to stay in their homes for a minimum of 15 years, but forfeiting their ownership claims to the properties to the Israeli settler organization Nahalot Shimon and paying the organization rent. The Supreme Court will now have to rule on the residents’ appeals against eviction. The families explained their decision as a choice between their own “dispossession or submitting to an oppressive agreement.” (AJ, HA, MEE, MEMO, WAFA 11/2; HA 11/3; ALM 11/8)

PA president Mahmoud Abbas met with Italian president Sergio Mattarella in Rome. (WAFA 11/2)

Former Fatah politician Mohammed Dahlan visited Russia and met with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. The meeting came ahead of PA president Mahmoud Abbas’s planned visit to Russia on 11/23. A Fatah official told Al Monitor that Dahlan’s meeting was made upon request from the UAE. (ALM 11/12)

The EU transferred $18 million to the PA to help pay salaries and pensions to PA public servants. (WAFA 11/2; MEMO 11/3)

In the West Bank, some 20 Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian shepherds in Dahariya, bruising 1 Palestinian who was taken to a hospital for treatment. Israeli settlers also uprooted dozens of olive trees in Taybeh. Israeli forces violently dispersed Palestinians protesting an Israeli raid in Biddu, causing tear-gas related injuries. Israeli forces also violently dispersed Palestinians during a protest in Beita, injuring 2 with rubber-coated bullets and 34 with tear gas. Elsewhere, Israeli forces violently dispersed Palestinian protesters in Kafr Qaddum, injuring 3 with rubber-coated bullets. 3 Palestinians were arrested, including 2 during late-night raids in Qabatiya and Bayt Jala, and 1 was arrested at a checkpoint north of Ramallah. In East Jerusalem, 5 Palestinians were arrested at the Haram al-Sharif compound, including 4 minors. Off the coast of Gaza, Israeli naval forces opened fire at Palestinian fishermen within 3 nautical miles west of Gaza; no injuries were reported. (WAFA, WAFA, WAFA 10/8; PCHR 10/14)

The Israeli Jerusalem district court overturned a ruling by the Jerusalem magistrate’s court from 10/6, which had ruled to allow Jewish worshippers to pray in silence at the Haram al-Sharif compound. Israeli public security minister Omer Bar-Lev supported the district court’s decision, saying that a change to the status quo could ignite a new wave of confrontations. (HA 10/7; AJ, HA 10/8; MEMO 10/9)

In Syria, 2 people were killed and 6 injured in air strikes at the T-4 military base near Homs. Several media outlets reported that Israel had conducted the strikes. (AP, HA 10/8)

Human Rights Watch (HRW) called for an independent investigation into Facebook’s censorship of Palestinians and their supporters on its platforms, including Instagram. HRW said that Facebook’s acknowledgement of the censorship was insufficient, and that Facebook needs to be more transparent about its decisions to censor people and groups on its platforms. (HRW, WAFA 10/8)

In the West Bank, Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians in Susiya, causing bruises, during a visit by EU representatives to the village. Israeli forces violently dispersed Palestinian protesters near Beita, killing 1 Palestinian using live ammunition; 7 others were hit by rubber-coated bullets and live ammunition, and 18 suffered tear-gas related injuries. Israeli forces also violently dispersed Palestinian protesters in Kafr Qaddum, injuring 4 with rubber-coated bullets. 12 Palestinians were arrested during late-night raids in and around Yatta, Bani Na‘im, Bayt Liqya, Bethlehem, Biddu, Aqabah, and Qabatiya. In East Jerusalem, Israeli forces injured 1 pro-Palestinian activist and arrested 4 others for waving a Palestinian flag during a protest in Sheikh Jarrah; at least 1 was released from jail on 9/25 after an Israeli judge ruled that flying Palestinian flags was not illegal. (AJ, AP, HA, MEE, MEMO, PCHR, REU, WAFA, WAFA, WAFA, WAFA 9/24; HA 9/27; PCHR 9/30)

PA president Mahmoud Abbas addressed the UN general assembly, outlining the territorial dispossession of Palestinians from historic Palestine at the time of the British Mandate to the current situation where Palestinians control 12% of the same land. President Abbas demanded that Israel withdraw from to the 1967 borders within 1 year. Abbas warned that if the world does not act to ensure the PA demand for a 2-state solution, then the “developments on the ground will dictate a reality [in which] the Palestinian people will demand its rights in the territory of all of historic Palestine,” hinting at moving toward demanding a 1-state solution. Abbas also accused Israel of ethnic cleansing and apartheid. Abbas addressed the UN general assembly in a pre-recorded video message. (AJ, AP, HA, MEE, REU, WAFA 9/24; AJ, HA, MEMO 9/25; ALM 9/26; ALM 9/29; ALM 10/5)

It was reported that Egypt refused to allow Mohammad Dahlan to relocate his office to Egypt from the UAE. (MEMO 9/25)

The U.S. think tank Center for Peace Communications hosted some 300 people in Erbil, Iraq, in a conference for normalizing ties between Iraq and Israel. Iraq’s presidential office, the prime minister’s office, and several influential organizations condemned the conference. An Iraqi court also issued arrest warrants for several of the attendees. (MEMO, MEMO 9/25; HA, MEMO, TOI 9/26; ALM 9/28)

The IDF maintains, for a 2d day, the closure of Qabatiya where the 3 Palestinians suspected of perpetrating the 2/3 shooting in the Old City were from. In the village, an Israeli armored vehicle rams and seriously injures a Palestinian youth, and 3 other Palestinians are injured in intermittent clashes. (HA, MNA, WAFA 2/4; PCHR 2/11)

In Ramla, Israel, 2 Palestinian youths are detained after allegedly stabbing and lightly injuring an Israeli security guard at a bus station. In Silwan, unidentified assailants throw Molotov cocktails at an Israeli bus, causing substantial damage and no injuries. Meanwhile, Israeli forces violently disperse Palestinian youths gathering in Jabal Mukabir, East Jerusalem, to call for the return of the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces (there are no serious injuries).Israeli forces also demolish a building in al-‘Izzariya; conduct a raid in Abu Dis, sparking clashes with stone-throwers (there are no serious injuries); arrest 3 Palestinians on further raids in Silwan, Qalandia r.c., and Biddu. In the West Bank, Israeli forces demolish 5 homes and 4 other Palestinian structures in the Jordan Valley, as well as 3 agricultural structures in a village nr. Ramallah overnight. IDF troops violently disperse Palestinians protesting and throwing stones nr. Qalqilya; 1 Palestinian is injured. The IDF conducts raids and house searches in 1 village each nr. Salfit, Nablus, and 3 villages nr. Ramallah, arresting 6 Palestinians and issuing 1 family a notice to vacate their home; patrols in 2 villages nr. Ramallah and 7 nr. Hebron. (HA, JP, MNA, WAFA, YA 2/4; MNA 2/5; PCHR 2/11)

Palestinian hunger striker al-Qiq rejects an Israeli High Court of Justice decision to suspend his administrative detention until his health improves. Al-Qiq argued that the ruling upheld his administrative detention in a different form. (MNA 2/4)

Israeli PM Netanyahu files an ethics complaint against 3 MKs from the Joint List for their 2/2 visit to the East Jerusalem families of Palestinians who have allegedly committed serious crimes or attacks in recent mos. (HA, JP, YA 2/4; JP, TOI 2/5)