Author: ISM Media Group

Settlers attack and burn olive tree’s in Awarta village

On Sunday 14 September settlers from the Itamar settlement near the Palestinian village of Awarta, Nablus, burned and destroyed 70 dunums of land (between 6-10% of their harvest) with approximately 400 olive tree’s, vital to the livelihood of the village.

In the morning settlers set fire to tree’s belonging to Awarta village destroying trees. They then came back in the evening and repeated the attack. At 23:30 on Sunday evening Assad Abdul Kareem spotted 4 settlers from the Itamar settlement descending the hill towards the village and set further fires on the land. This was also spotted by 2 local Nablusi from Balata camp in the area collecting steel. They reported the attack to the army.

Mandour Dawish and Hanni Darawshi from Awarta village took photos of the settlers and the fires. While doing this the army arrived and detained the 2 men for 2 hours and wiped the photos from one camera. They were unaware that the men had two cameras. The army did nothing to prevent the fire despite witness’s statements and photographs of the settler attack.

Awarta village is at the base one of the many expanding and aggressive settlement, illegal under international law. The olive tree’s are vital to the villages’ economy and 10,000 dunums fall near the settlement where it is forbidden for Palestinian farmers to get to their land to harvest or tend to the tree’s. Just 2 months ago settlers attacked a farmer and stole his donkey while he was attending his trees in the area.

East Jerusalem shows solidarity with the Al-Kurd family

On Monday September 15th 2008, the Muftah of Palestine and children from Shu’afaat orphanage visited the Al Kurd family to show their solidarity with the resistance Al Kurd and the 27 other families in Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood are putting up against Israel’s ethnic cleansing of occupied East Jerusalem.

50 children and grown ups broke fast together on the 15th day of Ramadan.

The orphanage in Shu’afaat refugee camp rewarded Kamel Al Kurd with a statuette of Palestine with her name engraved for strong and continues resistance against the occupation and ethnic cleansing in occupied East Jerusalem.

The approximately 50 people gathered in front of Al Kurd family home celebrated the break of the fast on the 15th day of Ramadan with a feast. Children from the orphanage in Shu’afaat enjoyed the fish and fries served. The Muftah of Palestine held a speech dedicated to the children about the meaning of Ramadan and the importance of unity and solidarity the Palestinian people in between, in relation to the meal the group had just shared.

Fawzia Al Kurd told the children about the struggle of the Palestinians living in Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood. She told about how the settler company Nahlat Shamon that falsely claims to own the land on which the house is build. She also spoke about how it has offered her 10 million US dollars for the small house her and her family have lived in for the last 50 years.

She told about how the settlers who have occupied half her families home have tried to set her up by placing a gun outside her home ones and money another time. How she avoided the set ups by calling the police and letting them remove both gun and money.

She also told about the time when 6 armed settler men broke into her house while her husband were in hospital after a stroke, likely to be caused by the stress the family are facing everyday.

She told the children about the importance of unity of the Palestinian people and thanked them for their solidarity. She also told them that they are not alone in their struggle and told how internationals from all over the world joining ISM share their values and stay in solidarity with the Palestinians in their struggle.

The Al Kurd family have lived in the house in Sheikh Jarrah since 1964 after they had to flee their childhood homes in Jaffah and West Jerusalem.
Their problems really started in 1985 when the Zionist settler organisation Nahlat Shemoun claimed ownership of the land.

Different Israeli settlers illegally live in the half of the house they have occupied from the Al Kurd family. They come during the day to occupy the space but the Israeli court has now giving the second order to evict them, they date is set to the 8th November.

Also the Al Kurd family have received an eviction notice from Israel after they renovated the house in order to make it possible for Fawzia’s husband to get around after his stroke.

The plan for the new Israeli neighborhood will form the missing link between the 12 illegal Israeli settlements consisting of 92,000 Israeli settlers in occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem.

Settlers occupying Al-Kurd family home given eviction order

The Al Kurd Family, residents of the East Jerusalem neighbourhood Sheikh Jarrah, have today won another trial in their struggle against settlers occupying their house. The Jerusalem District Court ordered the settlers to vacate the half of the Al Kurd family home they have occupied. This was the second judicial order issued to the settlers, following a previous Israeli Supreme Court order of February 2007. The District Court also reiterated the State of Israel’s obligation to enforce the order if ignored by the settlers.

The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem was built by the UN and Jordanian government in 1956 to house Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war. The Al-Kurd family, refugees from Jaffa and West Jerusalem, initially moved into the neighborhood hoping to return to their homes (in Israel proper) under their international Right of Return. With the start of the Israeli occupation following the 1967 war, settlers started claiming ownership of the land the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood was build on.

Arguing they had purchased the land from a previous Ottoman owner in the 1800s, settlers claimed ownership of the land. In 1972 settlers successfully registered this claim with the Israeli Land Registrar. While the Al-Kurds family continued legal proceedings challenging the settlers claim, the settlers started filing suits against the Palestinian family.

In 2006, the court ruled the settlers claim void, recognizing it was based on fraudulent documents. Subsequently, the Al-Kurd family lawyer petitioned the Israeli Land Registrar to revoke the settlers registration of the land and state the correct owner of the land. Although it did revoke the settlers claim, the Israeli land Registrar refused to indicate the rightful owner of the land. This refusal is in clear defiance of the Courts ruling.

To further complicate the Al-Kurd family’s situation, settlers began occupying an extension of their home. Despite the fact that their claim to the land was revoked, settlers were given the keys of the Al-Kurds family home extension by the local, Israeli, municipality. This was possible after the municipality had confiscated the keys of the extension -to house the natural expansion of the Al-Kurd family- declaring its construction illegal.

In defiance of all logic, in July 2008 the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the eviction of the Al-Kurd family, for their refusal to pay rent to the settlers for use of the land. Although the settlers claim to the land had been revoked two years earlier, the court instead based their decision on an agreement made between a previous lawyer and the settlers. It should be noted that the Al-Kurd family -and the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood as a whole- rejected this agreement and fired their legal representative.

The Al-Kurd family situation is exemplary of Palestinians in East Jerusalem. While settlers continue to operate -in cooperation with the Israeli government, municipality and police- in defiance of the law, Palestinians are denied their rights. Palestinians are living in fear of arrest for refusing to pay rent to settler associations that do not own the land. Moreover, Palestinians’ houses are illegally occupied by settlers whom Israel refuses to remove.

At the same time, the settlers’ association Nahlat Shemoun has issued a proposal to demolish Sheikh Jarrah and built 200 settlement units. The European Union describes the Israeli Government’s actions in East Jerusalem as discriminatory and recognizes a “clear Israeli intention to turn the annexation of East Jerusalem into a concrete fact.” Israel unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem following the 1967 war, despite the illegality of such actions under international law.

Policies of ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem

In the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, 28 Families are facing the threat of eviction from their homes. In a process of Judaisation of East Jerusalem, Israel aims to erase the presence of 28 Palestinian families by forcefully evicting them from their homes. Israeli settlers have already occupied half the house of the Al Kurd family to enforce this policy of ethnic cleansing. The 24-hour presence of international solidarity activists has been organised for the last two months in the hope of offering support for the Al Kurds family home.

The neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah was constructed to house 28 refugee families that fled the violence of the 1948 war. This housing project was built by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the Jordanian Government in 1956. With the Israeli occupation following the 1967 war, settlers started claiming ownership of the land the neighbourhood was built on.

After long legal proceedings it was proved in 2006 the settlers did not, in fact, own the land and had produced false documents to support their claims. In 2001, however, settlers had already occupied half of the Al Kurds family home. Fearing settlers would expand into more houses in the neighbourhood, the Al Kurds family and the neighbourhood as a whole asked for help from local and international Human Rights groups. Since then, a 24-hour presence of Human Rights worker has delayed the further expansion of the settlers into other Palestinian homes.

Although an Israeli Supreme Court eviction order for the removal of the settlers from the Al Kurds family home has been issued on 25/02/2007, no action has been taken by the Israeli government. The neighbourhood has taken the settlers, part of the settler investment company Nahlat Shemoun, to court again. Today the court ruled in favour of the Al-Kurd family again.

The threat of ethnic cleansing Sheikh Jarrah faces is part of a larger Israeli project to increase the Jewish population of East Jerusalem. Although East Jerusalem is internationally recognized as located in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, it has been excluded from the West Bank by the construction of the illegal Apartheid Wall. As a result of Israeli policies, the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem has already decreased by 25%. If successful, the result of the ethnic cleansing of the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood will be the annexation of East Jerusalem by Israel. Then, Israel will claim an undivided Jerusalem as their capital.

12 year old arrested in Ni’lin brought before military court

On Sunday 14th September, Mohammad Saleh Khawaje, aged 12 years and two months, from the village of Ni’lin will spend a fourth night in Ofer prison near Ramallah, as he awaits release on bail for the charges of stone-throwing and disturbance of public order. His co-defendant, 13 year old Abdul Ahman is not so lucky; he will be kept in jail until his indictment on Tuesday 16th September, when military prosecutors will request that the judge refuse bail, forcing the child to remain incarcerated for the period of his trial – a process that takes up to six months. The difference in their treatment, according to their lawyer, is based on the slight age difference. If convicted, however, both children face approximately ten to twelve months in jail, advised their lawyer.

A clear indication of the apartheid nature of the Israeli legal system, Mohammad and Abdul will be tried and punished as adults, despite their young ages because Palestinian children are defined as adults at 12 years old; while Israeli children are treated as such until they reach 18 years of age.

Sitting shackled in the dock of the military court, their heads barely reaching above the railing, the boys wore brave faces, chatting excitedly when Mohammad’s father entered belatedly after being held-up pointlessly at the Ofer checkpoint – Mohammad showing his father his bandaged wound, sustained when Israeli soldiers dragged him from his family home at 2:30am on Thursday 11th September.

Mohammad’s father, Abd Saleh, believes his son has been arrested as an act of revenge visited upon him and his family by Israeli soldiers, following Abd Saleh’s complaints to both Israeli police and military about attacks on him at the behest of Israeli military Lt. Col. Omri Burberg – now notorious as the commander who ordered Israeli soldiers to shoot the bound and blindfolded Palestinian arrestee Ashraf Abu Rama in the foot after a demonstration in Ni’lin.

In a testimony given to the human rights group B’tselem, Abd Saleh detailed the abuse he suffered on 13th July 2008, when, as a volunteer paramedic for Medical Relief, he was present at a demonstration in Ni’lin. Abd Saleh has testified that at this demonstration Omri ordered another commander “Miki” to shoot tear gas directly at him. The gas landed between his feet, quickly overwhelming him. Abd Saleh was then violently arrested, and dragged along the ground, despite protests from witnesses that he needed medical attention. After two hours Abd Saleh was taken by military ambulance to Makabeem military camp where Omri refused to allow hospital transfer for Abd Saleh, despite a military doctor insisting it was imperative, and then proceeded, with other soldiers, to beat Abu Saleh severely for ten minutes, kicking and punching his entire body until he was unconscious. Upon awakening, Abu Saleh was taken to a military ambulance and tied to the bed, whereupon he saw and heard commanders Omri and Miki order a female soldier to take photos of him, in a practice eerily echoing torture photos of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Grahib. In the following hours Abd Saleh was again punched in the face; refused water; left for two hours; and then put back in an ambulance only to be violently picked up and thrown on to the ground.

Abed Saleh wasn’t home when Israeli soldiers invaded the village of Ni’lin on Thursday night and raided his house. “The soldiers came to the house to take me again,” he explained. “They asked where I was. When they found out I wasn’t there they took my son instead.”

This is the second time in recent history that such allegations have been laid against Israeli soldiers under Lt. Col. Omri’s command. One month ago Jamal Amira, father of Salam Amira, the teenager who shot the infamous video in which Omri ordered the aforementioned shooting of Ashraf Abu Rama, was arrested as “Salam’s father” by self-proclaimed “friends of Omri”, and subjected to abuse strikingly similar to that Abd Saleh describes in his testimony.

This ethos of revenge is not however, limited just to soldiers under Lt. Col. Omri’s command, rather, it goes right to the heart of Israeli military policy, where it is standard practice to demolish the house of the family of any Palestinian who commits an attack on Israeli citizens. More than 628 houses have been demolished in accordance with this policy since the beginning of the second intifada.

Indeed, actions such as the arrest of Mohammad would also not be possible without a legal system that can try a 12 year old child as an adult.