Kuft Aqeb - in Corona days, shops are open but people don't have money to buy

Place:

Jerusalem

Tags:

Updates during Corona

Ramadan

Black listed by the police

Family reunification

Observers:

Ronit R. - telephone report in Corona days; Translator: Natanya

Apr-21-2020

Afternoon

A., who lives in Kufr Aqeb, rang me.

A. is a Palestinian married to an Israeli (of Russian origin). He has been in our care for a long time, trying to help him remove the police prevention. It's a story in itself - he had an open case in the police records. It turned out that he had been indicted and had not come to the hearing because no one had updated him about it. They forfeited the guarantee. For years (!!!),no one replied to the calls of the Tamir Blank, the lawyer. In the end, when we were already going to petition, the proceedings were resumed and he was convicted. And now he is a police prevented because of the convictions ... all because he went in to see his wife and children. .

Two girls were born to him during that period. Our friend Hanna Barag helped him get permits to visit his wife in the hospital after birth and also when one of the girls was treated in the hospital. (In addition, his wife was made to pay the maternity hospital bills. She is a citizen of Israel. With the help of legal assistance it was dealt with).

Part of the period he lived separately from his wife and daughters and because of certain circumstances they now live together in Kufr Aqeb.

Today he rang to tell that his wife had given birth this morning in a cesarean section in Hadassah. The hospital reported to him that the surgery had passed successfully, the baby info-icon was fine and his wife was recovering. He still has not spoken to her.

He is trying to get a permit to go to the hospital. Yesterday he went to Qalandiya DCO and it turned out to be closed. He was told by the Palestinian DCO that they had applied for him. He managed to talk to someone from the Israeli DCO in Beit El, who told him that they would help him, but he has still not received anything from the Palestinian authorities.

Now he ran with the documents to Beit El and stood in front of a closed door, and has lost the phone of the soldier who told him yesterday that he would help him. I referred him to Hanna Barg, hoping she could help this time too.

In the meantime, he said that the area where he lives is the responsibility of the PA (not the Jerusalem Municipality) and they "do nothing" according to him. The PA does not provide assistance. The shops are open and there is everything, but people have no money to buy. Preparing for a particularly sad Ramadan ...

Why do we take the trouble to report in Corona times as well?

Because democracy’s watchdogs have fallen asleep on their own watch, so Israeli citizens have no idea what is actually happening in the Occupied Territories, especially now.

Day and night, Israeli soldiers (as the State’s emissaries) help extreme settler-colonists take the law into their own hands, unhampered. They do not stop even in days of a raging pandemic and do not hesitate to harm Palestinians – their bodies, property, and sources of livelihood.

Unceasing harassment of the weakened Palestinian population inflicts psychological harm as well. All – from babies through and including the elderly and the ill – are open prey to Jewish violence and terrorism which the settler-colonists are only too eager to exert.

We of MachsomWatch will not cease to report, certainly not now during these Corona times and under the threat of annexation, about the settlers’ increased rampages, those who hurry to set facts on the ground helped by the Israeli army.

Israel rules the West Bank, and by force of the Geneva Convention, article no. 27, it is committed to enforcing law and order there. The inhabitants of these Occupied Territories have the legal right “to decent treatment of their body and dignity, and should be especially protected against any act of violence”.

Ironically, this is not at all upheld.

Nor shall we cooperate with the commonplace ignoring of the Palestinian people’s suffering, and with the Israeli public’s indifference to it. We shall continue to follow up closely and report the goings-on in the West Bank, in its villages and encampments.

No one should be able to say ‘We knew nothing, we heard nothing’

Location Description

Jerusalem

See all reports for this place

The places in East Jerusalem which are visited routinely by MachsomWatch women are Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah. During the month of Ramadan, also the Old City and its environs are monitored.