Month: October 2011 - Page 15 - International Solidarity Movement

Beit Kahlil: Tear gas flies as Israel demolishes home

6 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Demolitions in Beit Kahlil - Click here for more images

At 5:00 AM on the morning of the 6th October, approximately 30 armed soldiers came to demolish a house in Beit Kahil. The IOF woke up the family living in the neighbouring house and informed them about the demolition and declared the entire area a closed military zone. When he arrived, Omar Ahmad Hussan Abdel Din, the owner of the house, informed the soldiers about his lawyers appeal to the Israeli Court for getting the demolition order postponed until he had an official response to his application for building permission, but with no effect.

A member of the Abdel Din family said, “Why do we need a permission from Israel to build this is Palestine and Palestinian land? Though this is considered area C by the Israeli authorities, I do not recognise their authority, and anyways it is their bureaucratic way of stealing land.”

While a bulldozer was demolishing the Abdel Din house residence, the neighbourhood tried to prevent the demolition by throwing stones. The soldiers prevented them getting any way near by using sound bombs and shooting tear gas grenades. During the protest one of the tear gas canisters broke the window and entered a house resulting in three women and four children being taken to the hospital and treated for tear gas inhalation. An additional 2 people were injured by the tear gas cannisters, requiring 1 person who needed 3 stitches.

The village of Beit Kahil is divided by a valley with the road running to Hebron. In 2009 the houses on the one same side of the valley as an Israeli military base got demolition orders at once. Including the house of Omar Abdel Din, demolition orders were given to around 15 houses which are inhabited by around 100 citizens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r–KuGzPVww

One of the neighbours said, “Obviously when we saw the Occupation Forces and bulldozers we were shocked and feared that they would demolish all our houses.”

In 2011 14 houses were demolished in the Hebron area, leaving 104 Palestinian homeless including 50 minors. Area C and B are the areas where Palestinians need to seek permission from Israeli authorities to build, accounting for 83 % of the West Bank.

According to the Israel Civil Administration, more than 93 % of the applications for a building permission are refused, and many Palestinians do not even bother to ask permission to build knowing they will be refused.

Students march to Ofer Prison in solidarity with hunger strike

by Alistair George

5 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Over 100 students from Bir Zeit University marched to the gates of Ofer Prison, near Ramallah today, to demonstrate solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails.

Prisoners in several Israeli jails began hunger strikes on 27 September 2011 to to protest against solitary confinement, restricted visiting hours and harsh conditions. The protests have since gathered momentum, with Reuters reporting that there are around 500 prisoners currently on hunger strike in Israeli prisons. It is thought that there are around 9 or 10 prisoners in Ofer prison on hunger strike.

The protesters assembled in front of the prison gates at around 1:15pm today, facing Israeli soldiers standing a few metres away just inside the prison compound. The protesters peacefully chanted slogans in support of the prisoners; however, after the majority of protesters had left, a minority of youths threw stones at the Israeli soldiers inside the prison compound. The military responded by deploying tear gas to drive the remaining protesters several hundred meters away from the prison.

The students’ protest followed an earlier demonstration at the prison at 12:00 today, which eyewitnesses claimed was attended by around 200 people and ended in a similar manner; with a minority of Palestinian youths throwing stones and the Israeli military responding with tear gas.

A young female protester from Birzeit University had been protesting peacefully and was hit in the back by a tear gas canister but was unharmed. She expressed concern about the Israeli military’s practice of filming peaceful protests; “I live in Jerusalem and I worry that they will identify me and cause problems for me when I travel through the checkpoint.”

One of the protesters was the mother of a 23 year old Palestinian man who is a student at Birzeit University and is currently being held in an Israeli prison. She said that her son was arrested eight months ago and has spent the last nine days in solitary confinement as punishment for participating in the hunger strike. She also claimed that prison authorities have ruled that prisoners will be denied visitors for one month for every day that they spend on hunger strike.

When asked about the prisoners on hunger strike she said, “They won’t stop until their goals are reached.”

She expressed defiance against the Israeli occupation.

“I’ve lived under occupation for more than 40 years–I am not scared.”

Alistair George is an activist with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Youth arrested in Hebron over cereal

2 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On 2 October in Al Khalil (Hebron), the Israeli army and police arrested 2 Palestinian children based on petty, unfounded accusations whilst allowing settlers to employ violence with complete impunity. 13 year old Khaled Abu Snaeneh and 15 year old Said Abu Aisha were arrested and detained for over 4 hours at Kiryat Arba police station.

At 2:45 soldiers came to the Abu Aisha house in Tel Rumeida to investigate a complaint made by settlers that Palestinians had stolen some boxes of expired cereal from their backyard. A group of around 30 settlers gathered around the house shouting at both the Palestinian residents and the police and army. Under pressure from the gradually increasing number of settlers surrounding the house Israeli police made the decision to arrest the two young boys, solely on the evidence of being accused by the settlers.

Ibrahim Abu Aisha explained that the boys arrested had not taken the cereal as they were working at the time the incident took place.

Several Palestinians reported that Baruch Marzel from the Tel Rumeida settlement kicked 30 year old Fawaz Abu Aisha requiring him to go to hospital. Despite the visible bruising on Fawaz’s leg and attempts to complain to the police they refused to take any action on this assault. Marzel has a history of assaulting Palestinians and was formerly a spokesperson for the Kach party before it was made illegal in Israel as a racist, terrorist organization.

After being driven to Kiryat Arba police station and detained for 4 hours, the boys were not charged but still forced to pay a fine of 200 shekels each.

Demolitions: Israel annexing more land in Kufr ad-Dik and Salfit

4 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Homes destroyed in Kufr ad-Dik and Salfit - Click here for more pictures

On Tuesday around 11am the Israeli army carried out demolitions in the West Bank towns of Beit Ula and Kufr ad-Dik, destroying homes, animal pens, wells and hundreds of trees.

Yousef Muhammed Turshan sat amongst the rubble that used to be the home for him, his wife, and 5 children.

“This is our only home, I don’t know where we will sleep tonight. They destroyed the building that held the sheep and now they have gone missing. This is my children’s future they are destroying.”

The Tursham family lost the tent they lived in as well as 2 brick rooms, an animal pen, and a water cistern. Their land was one of 3 sites demolished in Beit Ula. In total the Israeli army destroyed 1 residential tent, 4 brick rooms, 4 animal barracks , 4 wells, 2 irrigation systems, 150 olive trees and 400 other trees and vines. In Kufr ad-Dik, west of Saflit at least 2 animal barracks and a water well were also destroyed.

Another farmer from a site in Beit Ula showed the wasteland that had just a few hours ago, been full of hundreds of olive and fruit trees.

“I have cared for this land where they destroyed for years, checking every plant everyday. We pay 40 shekels per cubic metre of water from Israeli companies just to water them. I used to go out every night with a torch to check that the irrigation system was working correctly, now they are all destroyed and all our efforts were for nothing.”

After the bulldozers uprooted the 150 olive trees they also confiscated them from the land so that nothing could be salvaged. The farmers told us that they managed to save one home from demolition by sitting in front of it and refusing to move. However the house still has a demolition order on it, and they know that the army will return eventually to destroy it.

All of the farmers told us that they had documents proving that they owned the land, the sites destroyed were all at least 1 kilometre from the Israeli apartheid wall and there are no settlements in close proximity.

One of the farmers explained that the demolitions could not have been for security reasons because pine trees much closer to the wall were not destroyed. He believes they want to drive the farmers out from the land so that it can be claimed as state property after 3 years of not being used.

There are a further 11 demolition orders around Beit Ula, which means many families have to live with the fear that their homes, buildings or crops may be destroyed at any time.

Gaza: Planting in something dead

5 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Around Gaza is a 300 meter “buffer zone,” a no go zone, a land of death. Gaza is not just a prison, it is a shrinking prison. Every time that Israel expands this zone, Gaza gets a little smaller. Every Tuesday, the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative and the International Solidarity Movement march into the buffer zone to challenge the occupation and the theft of Palestinian land. Today, we also marched in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners who are on hunger strike in the jails of the occupation.

What could be more logical than one group of prisoners marching in support of another group of prisoners?

We gathered near the Agricultural College of Beit Hanoun at 11 a.m. We loaded olive trees, shovels, and big jugs of water onto the van. There was no space in the van, so all of the goods rode on top of the van. We set off down the road toward the buffer zone, slowly so that nothing would fall off the van as we drove down the rutted road. We reached the buffer zone, stopped the van, and began to unload the olive trees and everything necessary to plant them. These olive trees would join the others that we planted last week. We plan on slowly returning the lands of the buffer zone to what they were before the Israeli’s declared the area a zone of death, we plan on making olive groves flourish in the buffer zone. Our struggle is not just to return life to the buffer zone, but to make a regular life possible in the areas close to the buffer zone.

The buffer zone is now a little greener than yesterday after planting 20 trees in the buffer zone. The death that haunts this area is a result of the occupation and its relentless destroying bulldozers. The same bulldozers that crushed Rachel Corrie to death in Rafah in 2003.

Sabur Zaaneen from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative spoke. He said that we must “affirm our right to land and cultivate and strengthen the resilience of farmers and their return to work the land despite all the terrorist practices of the Israeli occupation.”

“[We] need for a mass movement to support the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.”