WEST BANK (Dispatches) – The Zionist regime’s army has declared the city of Al-Khalil a “closed military zone” to prevent a tour organized by human rights organizations with the participation of hundreds of activists in the city. This came a week after the regime troops in the city attacked Israeli activists who showed solidarity with the city’s residents against settler attacks.
Around 300 activists came to Al-Khalil to participate in a tour organized by 30 human rights organizations in the wake of the recent attacks on activists in Al-Khalil.
The occupation army claimed it sealed off the city to “prevent friction”. The military has limited the movement of those participating in the tour to a bus stop near the Ibrahimi Mosque.
The tour was organized by the Israeli organizations Breaking the Silence, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Peace Now, B’Tselem and other organizations. The military order took effect at 7 am before the activists arrived for the tour.
Meanwhile, the Zionist regime is reportedly mulling over denying entry to the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 amid a spike in the regime’s aggression against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
According to the Israeli media outlet Israel National News, the regime is considering a ban on Francesca Albanese, an international lawyer and researcher who has worked extensively on the Palestinian issue, for making anti-Israeli remarks.
The newspaper claimed that Albanese took part in a conference last week in the Gaza Strip, which was also attended by Hamas and Islamic Jihad officials, and told the participants that “you have the right to resist this occupation.”
Organized by the Council on International Relations-Palestine, the conference was titled “16 Years of Siege on Gaza: Impacts and Prospects” which aimed to shed light on the repercussions of the siege on the besieged enclave, the Palestinian Chronicle reported.
Albanese is not the first UN representative to be denied access to the occupied territories by the occupying regime authorities. Her predecessors Michael Lynk and Richard Falk, among others, were repeatedly prevented from visiting due to their critical stance on the regime’s atrocities.
In a report on October 18, Albanese strongly condemned the Zionist regime’s “apartheid practices” in the occupied Palestinian territories, saying its actions against Palestinians amount to “persecution.”