IOF ARRESTS UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT AT A MILITARY CHECKPOINT
Nablus, 28 Jumadil Akhir 1435/28 April 2014 (MINA) – The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested Sunday evening an undergraduate student at a military checkpoint erected western Nablus.
According to the local sources ,IOF arrested Awad Gomaa ,21 ,a student in al – Najah university, while in his way back to home. IOF erected a military checkpoint near Surra village to the west of Nablus City.
Gomaa’ is from Kafr Qadom village which is located to the east of Qalqilya. Al Ray quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
An Israel Defense Forces checkpoint is a barrier erected by the Israel Defense Forces with the stated aim of enhancing the security of Israel and Israeli settlements and preventing those who wish to do harm from crossing.
Since the 1990s, and especially since the violence associated with the Second Intifada, Israel has created hundreds of permanent roadblocks and checkpoints staffed by Israeli Military or border police.
In September 2011, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said there were 522 roadblocks and checkpoints obstructing Palestinian movement in the West Bank, up from 503 in July 2010.
According to B’Tselem, there were 99 fixed checkpoints in the West Bank in September 2013, in addition to the 174 surprise flying checkpoints. In August 2013, 288 flying checkpoints were counted.
However, according to the IDF, after withdrawing the majority of checkpoints as a goodwill gesture, there were in May 2013 only 12 checkpoints in the central region of the West Bank.
Many Palestinian residents of the West Bank, claim that despite the checkpoints’ intended use, in practice they violate Palestinians’ rights to transportation and other human rights. Palestinian complaints of abuse and humiliation are common: Israel Defense Forces’ Judge Advocate General, Maj. Gen. Dr. Menachem Finkelstein, states that “there were many—too many—complaints that soldiers manning checkpoints abuse and humiliate Palestinians and that the large number of complaints ‘lit a red light’ for him”.
The United Nations, in its February 2009 Humanitarian Monitor report, has stated that it is becoming “apparent” that the checkpoint and obstacles, which Israeli authorities justified from the beginning of the second Intifada (September 2000) as a temporary military response to violent confrontations and attacks on Israeli civilians, is evolving into “a more permanent system of control” that is steadily reducing the space available for Palestinian growth and movement for the benefit of the increasing Israeli settler populationIsraeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested Sunday evening an undergraduate student at a military checkpoint erected western Nablus.
According to the local sources ,IOF arrested Awad Gomaa ,21 ,a student in al – Najah university, while in his way back to home. IOF erected a military checkpoint near Surra village to the west of Nablus City.
Gomaa’ is from Kafr Qadom village which is located to the east of Qalqilya. (T/P04/P03)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
