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Mar. 9, 2021
A Palestinian man died on Monday in a fire in his home in a Jerusalem neighborhood, after Israeli soldiers prevented a firetruck from passing through the Qalandiyah checkpoint to reach Kafr Aqab, located in Jerusalem s municipal borders but on the Palestinian side of the separation barrier.
The fire broke out in the Dola family’s home in the early morning, seemingly from an electrical short circuit in a heater’s electric cord. Ahmad, 34, woke up and went to the neighbors to call for help, and then returned home in an attempt to rescue his wife and two-month-old son.
Israel is in the midst of an extensive vaccination campaign, and is beginning to see a drop in COVID infections and severe cases. Israel exited its third nationwide lockdown, but inbound and outbound flights remain suspended except for special cases. So far, 5,660 Israelis have died of the virus.
Meanwhile, Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have received 30,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, and 2,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine donated by Israel. It may take a while still for a mass vaccination campaign to get under way, and many months for it to reach enough members of the population. 1,659 people have died so far in the West Bank, while 546 have died in Gaza.
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The center’s opening is part of a broad vaccination campaign MDA is conducting in predominantly Arab East Jerusalem in an effort to curb the worrisome rate of infection there. After months in which the ultra-Orthodox community suffered high infection rates and topped the charts in the capital, in recent days it is the east part of the city that has seen a sharp rise in new cases. On Monday, 31 percent of the coronavirus tests from the Arab neighborhoods were positive, while on Tuesday it was 27 percent. Of the 680 new cases in Jerusalem on Tuesday, 294 were from East Jerusalem. There are 86 COVID-19 patients from East Jerusalem in the city’s hospitals.
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Feb. 7, 2021
Three family members from East Jerusalem were charged Thursday with the murder of four of their distant relatives in a family dispute.
The killings were committed about a month ago in Kafr Aqab, a Palestinian village within Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries that is on the other side of Israel’s separation barrier with the West Bank.
Israeli authorities have a limited presence there, and following the killings, in a rare move, Israel permitted armed security forces from the Palestinian Authority into the neighborhood to calm matters.
The defendants – Ahmed, Zayad and Fawzi Rajabi – are charged with involvement in the killing of Adnan, Haytam, Issam and Ihab Rajabi. The conflict began when the victims complained to the son of one of the defendants that he was driving recklessly near their home, according to the indictment. In response, the driver allegedly returned with the defendants, who attacked the occupants of the house and shot at them, the indi