by Alex
2 January 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
In the morning of the 30th of December three members of the International Solidarity Movement and one other international were walking the streets of Nabi Saleh when two military jeeps drew up and stopped next to them. A group of approximately ten soldiers jumped out of the jeeps grabbing two of the international volunteers, forcing them into the jeeps as they drew away. Inside the car they were told they were under arrest for disobeying orders, stating that when they had instructed the internationals to stop, the internationals had fled and disobeyed. The ISM volunteers found this strange as they were the ones who actually stopped, and those who ran away were not arrested. The arrested were taken to a military-base where all their belongings were taken from them. They were then interrogated by a policeman. In this interrogation the charges were changed, shifting to allegations against the volunteers that they had entered a closed military-area, which also was strange as soldiers had blatantly let them into the area just an hour earlier.
After some hours waiting in the military base, they were handcuffed and driven to a police-station where they were also shackled. Once again they were interrogated by another policeman, this time for disobeying orders to stop when the soldiers supposedly wished to inform the volunteers that they were in a closed military-area.
After the interrogation they were given a paper written in Hebrew to sign. It was translated orally by a soldier. They refused to sign it and instead they were given another paper that said that they could not go to Nabi Saleh for 15 days.
Afterwards they were released without charges. The policemen asked them to tell Europe how well the Israelis had treated them.
Alex is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).