Closure of a Club and Confiscation of its Contents

Violation: Shutting down an Islamic club and expropriating its contents
Date: 01/05/2014
Location: Qalqiliya governorate
Perpetrators: The Israeli occupation army
Victims: The Islamic Club

Details:

At the early hours of dawn on Thursday, May 01, a large force of the Israeli occupation army broke into Qalqiliya and headed into the Islamic Club, at the downtown, where they seized the contents of the club and transferred them to an unidentified place via special vans before welding the door shut and hanging a military order that read: “Closed for two years”.

The club was founded in 1997 and is licensed by the Palestinian National Authority. Its activities cover sports and educational courses, especially for the Tawjihi (high school) students.

Pictures 1: The entrance of the club that was shut down

The Islamic Club is considered among the charitable organizations that provides services to its members for free and receives donations from different Islamic organizations abroad. The Israeli occupation targeted a number of Islamic institutions in Qalqiliya before and confiscated its contents. Some of those were: Qalqiliya Rehabilitation Society, the Prosthetics Factory, al Quran radio station and the House of Quran and Sunnah.

The fate of the confiscated items is still unknown and nothing has returned back to any of the mentioned above.

About Qalqiliya:

Bordering the Green Line, Qalqiliya is surrounded by the 1948 occupied Palestine from the north and west, Nabi Elias from the east, and Hableh from the south. It has a population of 53825 people (according to 2014 projections). It has a total area of 10252 dunums, 3727 of which are a built-up area.

The Israeli occupation confiscated 2265 dunums of Qalqiliya land for the sake of colonization and establishment of the Wall:

Al Matan Colony that was established in 1981 and consists of 37 residential units.
Bypass road no. 55 that serves colonists only.
The Wall that took over 862 dunums and isolated 1401 dunums.

According to Oslo Accords, Qalqiliya is divided into area A (PA has full civil and security control) and Area C (Israel maintains full security and administrative control). Here are the areas in dunums: