Ramallah: Israeli occupation forces shut down overnight Tuesday a Hebron-based radio station under claims that it was inciting violence against the Israeli regime.
A large number of occupation forces sealed Dayrat Al Sair neighbourhood of the West Bank flashpoint city of Hebron, raided Al Hurriyah radio station, shuttered the entire station’s building, confiscated equipment and handed the station’s staff a military order shutting the station for the next six months.
According to a statement by Al Hurriyah, the radio’s teams were getting ready to cover raiding of the occupation forces in Hebron, assuming it was a routine night arrest operation but the radio’s crew was shocked to find the occupation forces targeting their station.
“The Israeli occupation forces have been providing a mountain of lies regarding the execution of Palestinians in claimed foiled attempted stabbings and Al Hurriyah radio station has been digging down for the truth. There has been nothing more devastating to the Israeli structure of lies than the revelation of the truth,” said the radio’s statement. “Our radio station has actively participated in showing yet again the ugly face of the Israeli occupation, especially in the flashpoint of the city of Hebron.”
“We will not adhere to the Israeli military order and our broadcast will go just normally as if nothing had happened,” read the statement.
On several occasions, Palestinians have accused the occupation forces of executing Palestinian children and young people and fabricating stabbing attacks, where Israeli soldiers have been filmed planting knives beside the Palestinian victims.
Israel claimed that the occupation forces closed the Hebron-based radio station over the radio’s “incitement to violence”. The Israeli military said in a statement that “the operation against the radio station was carried out specifically to battle vicious incitement against Israel, encouraging stating attacks and supporting violent resistance”.
In escalating violence which rocked occupied east Jerusalem and the West Bank since the beginning of October, the Israeli occupation forces and colonists, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, have killed 74 Palestinians, 17 of them minors, and wounded at least a thousand others. The latest wave of violence erupted as Israel seeks to change the status quo of Al Haram Al Sharif, giving the Jews the right not only to visit the holy shrine but also to pray there.
Eisa Qaraqei, who heads the Palestinian Higher Prisoners Committee, asserted on Tuesday that the occupation forces arrested 800 Palestinian minors in October, the highest rate of arrests of minors since 1967.
Meanwhile, occupation forces raided a medical centre in the town of Saeer, north of Hebron, seeking the arrest of a wounded Palestinian believed to have received first aid at the centre. Sources in Hebron said that the occupation forces brutally raided and shattered Zuhair Jaradat Medical Centre in search of a wanted wounded Palestinian. The Israeli occupation forces sealed the centre and interrogated the centre’s staff, arresting an emergency medical technician.
