Year: 2013 - Page 7 - International Solidarity Movement

Viscous crackdown on unarmed protesters against the Prawer Plan just outside Ramallah

2nd December 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Occupied Palestine

Over 100 Palestinians and international activists took part in a non-violent demonstration on the 30^th of November to protest against the Prawer Plan. The demonstration began at the al-Bireh municipality building in Ramallah and proceeded onto the Bet El settlement nearby. Demonstrators were met with stones then live ammunition from settlers before the Israeli army and border police arrived, employing violent tactics to disperse the demonstrators and arresting three Palestinians in the process.

Protesters gathered at the municipality building at around 2pm to protest the Prawer Plan (Israel’s planned removal of up to 70,000 members of the Bedouin population living in the Negev) before travelling by bus to the Bet El settlement. On arrival protesters made their way up a side entrance of the illegal settlement whilst under attack from stones thrown by settler youth. This did not deter the demonstrators who chanted slogans and attached banners to the settlement fence. This brought the attention of settlers armed with automatic firearms. After a brief period of pushing on the chain linked fence the armed settlers fired a volley of live ammunition in the air in an attempt to intimidate the non-violent protesters. Shortly after this Israeli forces began arriving on the scene.

This prompted those present to continue demonstrating on the main road adjacent to the settlement. The Israeli army and border police were initially passive due to the large presence of journalists and photographers, which led those present to believe that this non-violent protest would be allowed to continue without violent intervention. However it quickly degenerated into a brutal crackdown on all peaceful protesters present. The security forces initially fired a flurry of tear gas canisters whilst advancing 30 meters before breaking into formations with riot shields to obstruct the road. Numerous stun grenades were then thrown at the feet of protesters in an effort to disperse them. However it was only once arrests began to take place that this occurred. One of those arrested was slammed to the ground and held there by up to 12 soldiers and border police before being led away to an undisclosed location.

By this point a good deal of the demonstrators had dispersed but a small number headed towards Jalzaun refugee camp and created road blocks to attempt to disrupt the advance of the Israeli soldiers. Some also began to throw stones up the road where the lines of army and border police remained, at which point tear gas was fired in vast quantities towards the Palestinian protesters. Some protesters were forced to leave the area due to the thickness of the tear gas in the air and the unbearable conditions that this created. However those that did remain, as well as the residents of the refugee camp, were shot at with both rubber-coated steel bullets and live ammunition even after the demonstration was clearly finished. Despite this, no serious injuries were reported although many people were treated on the scene for tear gas inhalation.

Protests against the Prawer Plan have taken place across Palestine, but also worldwide over the last few days including in the Negev itself where up to 1000 people attended. However despite this Benjamin Netanyahu described the Prawer Plan demonstrations as “riots” and stated, “We shall continue to advance the Prawer Bill.”

Daily brutality towards Palestinians in occupied Al-Khalil

2 December 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

Israeli forces regularly exercise brutal and irrational behaviour in the H2 area of Khalil (Hebron), which is under military control.

Israeli soldiers marching a Palestinian to Tel Rumeida military base (photo by ISM)

An example of this treatment took place on Saturday 30^th November, when 7 Israeli soldiers reacted to a group of Palestinian youth throwing stones at an illegal settlement by launching stun grenades through the souk (market). International activists witnessed the Israeli soldiers running into the market and indiscriminately throwing stun grenades, causing panic and distress amongst people in the street.

When questioned by internationals, Israeli soldiers admitted that it was a “mistake” to use their weapons in this way and said they do not “enjoy” their actions. However this does not alter the reality for Palestinians living in Khalil, who are subjected to these excessive reactions on a regular basis.

This behaviour is consistent with other recent events, for example the treatment Palestinians often experience on arrest. On Friday 29^th November two Palestinians were arrested, supposedly accused of throwing stones. They were held at a checkpoint, blindfolded, handcuffed and marched to Tel Rumeida military base. It is understood that the two men have yet to be released.

Conversely, when Israeli Border Police witness settler violence they readily ignore it. This was highlighted by an incident on Saturday 30^th November when a police officer looked on as an international activist was kicked by an illegal settler.

The regularity of this unjust behaviour towards Palestinians by Israeli forces serves to intensify the daily impact of the Occupation.

Israeli army demolish a house in the Salfit village of Deir Ballut

29th November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Deir Ballut, Occupied Palestine

On Thursday morning at five am, the Israeli army demolished a house under construction, and left the area before the owner Ghaneem Mahmoud Abdullah Al-Karim or other villagers were able to arrive at the scene. It is believed that the Israeli forces conduct these activities so early in the morning in order to avoid nonviolent resistance from the villagers. This was the first house to be demolished in Deir Ballut but there are over sixty houses that have been served demolition orders from the Israeli army.

The village is over five hundred years old, and within the Oslo Agreements the village was literally split between Area B and Area C. There are over a hundred and eighty houses that now fall within Area C and therefore are under threat of demolition. The inhabitants of Area C need permission from the Israeli government to even refurbish their houses, which is often impossible to get.

Deir Ballut (to the left of the map) is in risk of being surrounded by the annexation wall. The red line is the wall today while the black marks the planned route (source: OCHA).

The majority of Deir Ballut, as with other villages in the area, is classified as Area C and is controlled by the occupation forces. Many villages in the Salfit area have lost land to settlement and to the construction of the separation wall. Deir Ballut has lost 2,000 dunums which was confiscated when Israel built the Apartheid Wall, and the intended reassignment of the Wall which is to be carried out in coming years will mean that the village will lose even more land and is surrounded by the wall.

As Deir Ballut’s population increases, families are forced to build in Area C, as is the case for the Al Karim family. The villagers are committed to continue constructing homes on their land, and to help Ghaneem and his family to rebuild their house.

PNGO and human rights organizations calls for immediately ending suffering of civilians due to electricity outages

29th November 2013 | Palestinian Centre for Human Rights| Occupied Palestine

The Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO) and human rights organizations in the Gaza Strip express their deep concern for the deteriorating humanitarian conditions of the population of the Gaza Strip due to the continued tightened closure imposed by Israel on 1.8 million people and its impact on all aspects of their lives, while the international community remains silent towards human rights violations perpetrated by Israeli occupation forces. PNGO and human rights organizations are deeply concerned for the aggravation of the crisis of electricity outages resulting from these policies which leads to an imminent humanitarian disaster seriously impacting all vital interests of the population, including water and sanitation services, educational services and all daily necessary vital services.

PNGO and human rights organizations are concerned that the deterioration in all aspects of the population’s life may further aggravate as a result of the continuous consequences of the Palestinian political split and the failure of its two parties to solve the power and fuel crisis which has been persistent since late June 2006 when Israeli forces bombarded the Gaza Power Plant.

PNGO and human rights organizations observe with deep concern the deterioration of humanitarian conditions of the Gaza Strip’s population since 01 November 2013, when the Gaza Power Plant was forced off due to the lack of fuel. Both governments in Ramallah and Gaza have failed to take any effective steps to overcome this crisis and its consequences, and accordingly all daily basic services needed by the population have disastrously deteriorated. As a result of the crisis, electricity supplies to all vital facilities, including houses and health, environmental and educational facilities, have been sharply decreased; electricity is off for 12 hours and then on for 6 hours only.

PNGO and human rights organizations believe that the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip is essentially a result of Israeli systematic policies against the civilian population, including bombarding the sole power plant in the Gaza Strip in late June 2006, and decreasing fuel supplies to the power plant in the context of the illegal closure imposed on the Gaza Strip. PNGO and human rights organizations are aware of the continuous deterioration of the human rights and humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip due to the crisis of electricity outages, while the international community remains silent towards human rights violations perpetrated by Israeli forces, which have created and perpetuated the crisis, including targeting the infrastructure of the electricity sectors, such as supply and transmission lines and towers, during repeated incursions into the Gaza Strip, or using fuel and other consumptive goods as a means to punish the population, and the Israeli authorities’ failure to meet their obligations as an occupying power to maintain the operation of medical facilities and water and sanitation services.

It is worth noting that the electricity crisis has become a serious challenge to normal life of the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip, which poses imminent risks to all aspects of daily life due to its direct impacts. Currently, the crisis has led to suspension of many health care programs and services, waste water treatment, water supplies, especially to high buildings, and educational services. Vital economic sectors, especially workshops and commercial stores, have sustained large economic losses, due to Israeli attacks and the closure imposed on the Gaza Strip. Life for Palestinians living in high buildings has become extremely difficult due to the lack of electricity that is necessary to operate elevators and provide water supplies. The crisis has also impacted the educational process and the economic and living conditions of the population due to their inability to provide alternatives to electricity supplies, especially with the high prices of fuel which the population cannot afford. Additionally, the electricity crisis and the population’s efforts to find alternatives have caused horrible human tragedies. According to information of human rights organizations, 16 Palestinians, including 14 children and one woman, have died by fire, and 9 others, including 5 children, have sustained burns since the beginning of 2012.

PNGO and human rights organizations strongly condemn the failure of relevant parties to fulfill their obligations and take practical steps to ensure ending the suffering of the civilian population, while all justifications claimed by them are not acceptable. There are concerns that the Gaza Strip may turn into an area of a disaster due to the deterioration of humanitarian conditions. PNGO and human rights organizations believe that all concerned parties, including the international community, the occupying power pursuant to its international legal obligations and both governments in Ramallah and Gaza, should ensure protection of and respect for the inherent human dignity as a value whose waste can never be justified, or be subject to material or political bargains. Causing this human suffering that may lead to loss of lives can never be justified.

PNGO and human rights organizations in the Gaza Strip call upon all parties to immediately act to stop the suffering of the civilian population and find sustainable and strategic solutions that take into the consideration the civilian population’s needs and ensure protection of their lives and respect for their basic rights, including supplying all consignments of medicines and foods and basic services that are necessary for the population. PNGO and human rights organizations emphasize the following:

1. Israeli occupation authorities are legally responsible for the deteriorating humanitarian conditions of the Gaza Strip’s population and the illegal closure imposed on the Gaza Strip as a form of collective punishment, as Israel is an occupying power according to the international humanitarian law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.

2. The international community is responsible for the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip due to its failure to fulfill its legal and moral obligation and compel Israel to lift the illegal closure imposed on the Gaza Strip.

3. Both governments in Gaza and Ramallah must immediately and seriously act to end the electricity crisis, overcome the differences whose price is paid by the Gaza Strip’s population, abstain from pushing basic services and sectors into the political conflict, put an end to the suffering of the civilian population and find sustainable and strategic solutions that protect basic rights of people and the requirements for their adequate living conditions.

Day of Rage against the Prawer Plan will be held this Saturday, 30th of November, in the Naqab

10th November 2013 | Prawer Won’t Pass Campaign | Occupied Palestine

After a month laden with demonstrations and debates in the Interior Affairs Committee of the Knesset, this Saturday will see the largest event held thus far in the Naqab (Negev), with thousands of protesters expected to arrive from around the country. Parallel protests will be held in Gaza, Ramallah, Haifa, Berlin, The Hague, Cairo and 25 other cities around the world. This is a critical moment: the fate of up to 70,000 Palestinian-Bedouin indigenous to the Naqab (Negev) will soon be determined.

In their words, “We are human beings and citizens, but the Prawer Plan treats us like animals who can be moved around from place to place with no consultation or regard for our wishes. This Saturday, we will stand with our supporters from near and afar, and call for the recognition of the villages denied recognition and for a halt to this cruel plan.”

The Prawer-Begin plan will allow Israeli police to use force in its expulsion of Palestinian-Bedouins. It will also permit the police to arrest and imprison any Palestinian-Bedouin up to two years for violating the law. The plan negates Palestinian-Bedouin ownership rights in their ancestral land, it gives Israel’s Prime Minister unprecedented powers to implement the plan and it legitimizes the use of violence and coercion in the execution of the plan. Moreover, it is a plan that has at its heart the demographic transformation of the Naqab (Negev) area, by expanding Jewish-Israeli presence on the expense of the indigenous Palestinian-Bedouins. In short, the Prawer-Begin Plan rises to a crime against humanity as delineated in the Rome Statue, Article 7.1 (d) and 7.2 (d).

“The state is treating us like objects to be shunted about,” says Huda Abu-Obeid, a law student and an activist against the Prawer Plan. “We are being denied the basic right to decide our own fate – to decide where to live and how to dispose our property, our basic right to a home. But we will not give up and will continue to resist the Plan nonviolently.”

Abu-Obeid adds: “Imagine the State of Israel enacted a law forbidding citizens whose name starts with an A to live west of Route 4, in central Israel. The Prawer Plan says something similar to the Palestinian-Bedouins of the Naqab – it forbids them from living and holding property west of Route 40. The government is trying to present the plan as ‘in the best interest of the Bedouin,’ while with one hand it is acting to destroy Bedouin villages through the Prawer Plan and with the other it is building new Jewish localities in the Negev, some of these in the very same places where the villages stand today.”

“The plan is titled ‘The plan to regularize Bedouin settlement in the Negev’, but it does nothing to solve problems and regularize our settlements – it stipulates only destruction,” says Fadi El-Obra, a 29-year-old from Rahat, active against the Prawer Plan. “What about the people the government plan to deprive of their homes? We Palestinian Bedouins live in the villages because our livelihood depends on it; you cannot uproot an entire population and urbanize it without consultation – and that is precisely what the government is doing.”

Israel’s government claims that the plan’s objective is to ‘modernize’ and ‘alleviate’ the socio-economic conditions of Palestinian-Bedouins runs counter to many historical facts, and is racist on its own. First and foremost, the Israeli government did not approach the Palestinian-Bedouin community to ask them for their needs, nor did they consult the Palestinian political leadership within Israel. This is a plan devised by the government without any input from those immediately and directly affected. Second, unlike Israel’s claim Palestinian-Bedouins are not ‘nomads’, they have settled in villages more than a century ago and have lead a sedentary, agricultural based life on their ancestral land for decades now.

The central rally will take place at 3:30 pm at the Hura Junction on Route 31 in the Naqab.