FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Starting around 5am this morning and lasting until the evening, the Israeli army surrounded the Mukatah (local government building) in Nablus with close to 100 military vehicles. They killed three people inside who are a part of the preventative security force of the PA, that the Israelis claim were wanted persons. They detained the bodies of the fallen in Nablus after abducting them from an ambulance. The bodies have not yet been identified because their faces were so mutilated by gunfire. This comes on the same day that the Israelis stormed a government building in Ramallah, arresting five people. They also stormed the office of the Palestinian Wafa News Agency in a pre-dawn raid.
The Israeli military has invaded El-Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza and killed 6 people, including two children. They have bombed refugee camps, civillian infastructure and government buildings in Gaza in the last few days, killing many civilians. Since Israel stepped up the bombing of Gaza last month, the Israeli army has been enforcing more severe closures on the entire West Bank. It is currently impossible to travel to Nablus from the south.
Members of the ministry of security were held hostage in the Nablus building, surrounded by bulldozers, jeeps and tanks. It has since been reported that they were moved to another building and stripped of their clothing. The army has completely destroyed the preventative security building, part of the Nablus Mukatah, which was already mostly destroyed by the Israeli offensive in the West Bank of 2004.
The Israeli soldiers occupied buildings nearby in order to shoot into the Mukatah and people nearby. Palestinian Medical Relief, one of the many ambulance services, has reported that twenty people in Nablus have been injured including an Al-Jazeera technician who was shot in the leg by a rubber-coated metal bullet while he was helping shoot a live broadcast. BBC News Online has reported 45 people injured, according to hospital officials they have spoken to. The latest figures as collected by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) in their latest press release are that 81 Palestinians have been injured and 9 killed, including 2 children.
For more information call:
Sam 054 647 8139
Updated 6:40pm