Military court orders release of father of girl who documented IDF soldier firing rubber bullets at bound Palestinian in Naalin, accuses prosecution, police of being unprofessional. Father’s attorney: ‘Release proves arrest was out of vengeance’
By Ali Waked
To view original article, published by Ynet on the 18th August, click here
The Judea and Samaria Military Court of Appeals on Sunday ordered the release of Jamal Amira, the 53-year old father of Salaam Amira, the girl who documented the Naalin shooting incident in which an IDF soldier can be seen firing rubber bullets at a bound Palestinian.
The judge who ordered the man’s release reprimanded the prosecution and said that the three charges against the defendant – violation of an enclosed military space, participation in a protest, and assault of a soldier – lacked evidence. The judge expressed the questionability of the charges by asking, “Why was the father of the girl arrested out of all those protesting at the time?”
The judge determined that the defendant made a valid point when he said the protest had been peaceful, and that he saw no evidence of assault. He ordered the defendant’s release pending $2,100 in bail.
The father’s attorney, Gabi Laski, said the decision “confirms our preliminary claim that the arrest was out of vengeance and punishment for the video filmed by the girl.” She added that the prosecution should not disregard claims such as these before choosing to indict, and that the judge had reprimanded police for being unprofessional.
“If the prosecution sees that the material is insufficient it should request additional material rather than use it as the basis for the claim,” Laski said, referring to the lack of evidence. She claimed that the judge’s decision is significant because it implies that protests in Naalin are not a felony.
“It’s time we realized that the Palestinians living under occupation have the right of freedom of expression and freedom to protest, especially when a judge determines that the protest is non-violent, so why prevent it? The police and army must comprehend that not every protest is a violation of public order,” she said.
Every Friday at 1pm the villagers from Ni’lin meet in the fields outside the village to pray. This Friday, more than 50 soldiers and
some jeeps were in the surrounding area during the ceremony.
Once it finished, the army without provocation shot 36 tear gas canisters in a very short time, using a multiple-shot machine carried in one of the jeeps. They kept shooting tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets for more than half an hour from less than a hundred meters distance from the houses, so many of them got teargas inside as well.
After the people were dispersed from the site of the prayer, soldiers continued shooting massive amounts of gas into the village and in the olive groves between the village and the site of the apartheid wall. Seven people were injured by tear gas canisters and rubber-coated steel bullets, two of which has to be sent to the hospital in Ramallah for treatment. The clash between the soldiers and the villagers finished around 4 pm, when all the jeeps suddenly left after an Israeli filmmaker was seriously injured by a rubber-coated steel bullet.
Non-violent demonstrations have been taking place in Ni’lin several times a week for several months, after construction began of the apartheid wall which will annexe roughly fifty percent of the villages farmlands. The occupation forces have responded to the non-violent struggle by using increasingly extreme violence, resulting in the injury of hundreds of people. Two boys, 10 and 17, have been brutally murdered by the Israeli army, both shot in the head at close range.
Well here on baking, blissfully breezy Crete it has been a day of high expectation and yes, again, disappointment.
I spent my first night on board last night, in water so calm it reminded me of Lake Geneva. Our group had enjoyed a late dinner with sympathetic locals in a communal dwelling in what was once Chania’s law court and prison. A touchingly run down setting of past grandeur, with a vegan feast thoughtfully prepared. Music was provided by an elderly man singing in Spanish, accompanied on the guitar by a young man with dreadlocks = known only as ”citizen of the world’. I finally arrived back on the boat at 2am certain I could sleep even standing up (much less lying down on a foam mattress). Chania is a rather lively dock even on Monday nights. The nearest taverna was hosting a family celebration complete with Greek musicians, the clink of moonlit glasses and much enthusiastic chatter. Suffice it to say I decided to find a vacant cabin. These are basic, unless you lived your life trawling for sardines.
An hour later the alarm on my mobile phone went – time to take guard of the ships with Jeff Halper, anthropologist and founder of The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. The ships are never left vacant, the risk of sabotage being considered too high. Our turn as guardians of the Free Gaza and Liberty consisted of patrolling with a torch and talking noisily about subjects I was too tired to remember afterwards. However, knowing Jeff I’m certain they were both funny and profound.
The early morning meeting saw most sailors bright eyed and eager to sail, making plans for the longest leg of the journey to Gaza; the 3 day odyssey from the legendary isle of Crete to Cyprus. Both ships now have professional captains. Matthew who arrived this morning fresh from a private tour of the Greek islands looks very young (I have insisted he grow a beard to look older than seventeen) he assures us all that over three days his face will age. In fact Matthew is in this thirties with a wife and children and knows the waters between the Greek Islands intimately, the groups are very pleased to welcome him aboard. Having spent the morning studying the charts and the local shipping forecast (weather report) at 11 am Captain Mat (as he shall now be known) announced ‘Friday night is the perfect time to sail. Before that the journey in these vessels from Crete to Cyprus is not so much dangerous as suicidal.’
What did we do here in Crete at that announcement? For half an hour nails were chewed, each person went into a private purdah considering personal situations, the financial implications of staying longer, the commitment to those hoping for boats of hope to arrive on their shores. I know that the equally keen volunteers in Nicosia have important business commitments they have already delayed time and again for this mission. The news must have hit them hard.
Soon, everyone put the delay aside deciding how best to use this extra time to prepare. Huwaida and Courtney (please see biogs to find out more about them) are keen to brighten up both ships. Both locals and tourists who stop in front of both boats pointing and saying the word “Palestine’ are unsure they have found the ships they have either heard or read about. To remedy this, plans are afoot to paint the wheel houses in the red and green of the Palestinian flag, interspersed at Huwaida’s suggestion with words by the recently deceased Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.
Practical preparations continue, this delay means more funding, for the project to break the siege of Gaza needs an urgent boost. Fifty travellers in two locations need to be fed and those in Nicosia need the rent for their housing to be covered in order to remain at the university longer than expected. Meanwhile here in Crete, despite the various pressures put upon them not one single person is leaving the project. How they cope financially with the pressure put upon them I have no idea. The single principle, the only thought on the minds of those here this afternoon is that thousands in Gaza are willing on this small, independent project. It’s the people watching the horizon in Gaza that keeps everyone going here in Crete.
Meanwhile the world waits too to see what happens. Today Correiere Della Sera, a major Italian newspaper read by more than 2 million, devoted an entire page of their world news section to the Free Gaza Movement and the injustice suffered by Palestinians. The US media is the only group noticeable by their absence.
Free Gaza have the boats, the crew, and the willpower to challenge Israel’s illegal barricade. Now all they need is the weather.
Here is a message to the Gazans watching their sea for signs of ships: the Free Gaza Movement are on their way. When the winds are with them, nothing else should be able halt this mission of peace and goodwill.
After nearly one month of waiting at the Rafah crossing for Egyptian (Israeli) authorities to give permission to take the van full of medicine to Gaza, and after countless meetings and forms, today, Friday, at 12 noon, Khalil Al Niss arrived at the Rafah crossing to take the van away.
Over the course of the 25 day wait, the Egyptian authorities repeatedly refused suggestions regarding delivering the medical supplies, whether through the Rafah crossing, the Kerem Abu Salem crossing (Kerem Shalom), or via the Egyptian Red Crescent. That, along with the declaration by Israeli authorities, via the PA embassy representative, that there was ‘no way the van would ever cross through Kerem Abu Salem’ led Al Niss to decide, with no other option, to take the van from the crossing and begin the journey home.
Egyptian authorities presented many and varied the beauracratic excuses to justify their refusal to allow entrance to the medicine. The latest was that the medicine was not accounted for in an item by item list. As the medicine was donated by various supporters in the UK, Al Niss and Willis did not have one list with receipts to present to Egyptian authorities. Yet Egyptian authorities refused the suggestion to have a third party, like the Egyptian Red Crescent, unload and supervise the itemizing of the medical supplies.
Al Niss described his huge disappointment and frustration at not even being allowed to pass the medical supplies over to Red Crescent authorities to send to Gaza. On Thursday, he had met with the Rafah customs authorities, based in Al Arish, to discuss this possible hand-over of the medical cargo. He left the office with an document approved and signed by Ismail Abbas, the former General Manager of Customs in Rafah, now a Manager in the Arish branch, as well as by Khalil Attala Khalil, the Assistant to the Customs Minister. The document authorized the hand-over of the medical supplies, from Khalil al Niss to the Red Crescent, with a further stipulation that the RC would do their utmost to ensure the medicine was sent to Palestinian land, meaning Gaza.
Egytian customs authorities at the Rafah crossing itself vetoed the order flat-out, stating that Al Niss was not authorized to unload the van and give its contents to anyone else. Yet Abbas countered that “if anyone has a customs paper in his/her name, he/she has the right to give the cargo to whoever is specified on that paper. Then the contents belong to the recipient.” Abbas, extremely forthcoming and helpful, was no match for Egyptian bureaucracy, and Egypt’s determination to show deference to Israel rather than allow humanitarian aid in through any legal means.
Following Thurday’s promise and disappointment, Al Niss informed Gaza-based Dr. Khamis, the doctor the Scottish couple had coordinated with to deliver the medicine to, of the latest developments. Al Niss was again told that whenever the medicine got into Gaza, it would be very welcome, still urgently needed.
On Friday, the long, fruitless effort to bring aid to Palestinians in Gaza came to its end.
After over an hour’s wait at an increasingly-guarded border –with 6 army personnel trucks and a water cannon ready in the event Palestinians inside Gaza should protest their imprisonment– Egyptian authorities finally produced the paper releasing the van from its parked position at the border. The release paper stipulates Al Niss must drive the van back to the Nuweiba border crossing, with a police guard to ensure his departure, and that he cannot unload it at any point in Egypt.
Even without that stipulation, it would be impossible to open and unload the van, as it had been locked by Egyptian border officials upon arrival at Nuweiba nearly one month ago.
About 20 km away from Rafah the van stalled, technical problems. Three hours later, problems fixed, Al Niss continued the drive back to Al Arish.
But, during this delay, one branch of Egyptian intelligence, the Mokhabarat, called Al Niss to ask what his rush was. After 26 days at the closed Rafah crossing, and unccounted appeals to allow the medicine in, the intelligence agent related, on behalf of the authorities, that Al Niss had not exhausted all options, that the Kerem Abu Salem crossing would be opening in the future. Whereas Al Niss had been told by Egyptian officials he would not cross via Kerem Abu Salem, this latest suggestion lent little credibility.
Al Niss feels that this is a very poor attempt by the Egyptian authorities to insinuate that he and Willis aborted their humanitarian effort due to lack of interest. Nothing, he said, could be further from the truth.
The pair have realized that while the efforts they invested in gathering, driving, and trying to send across the closed border ugently-needed medical supplies did not succeed, the Egyptian authorities have made clear to the world their allegiance to political pressures, turning away from humanitarian need.
On Thursday, the 14th of August, peaceful protesters from the village of Ni’lin, who’s lands are being annexed by the construction of Israel’s apartheid wall, were met by extreme violence by the occupation forces.
The army later came deep into the village of Ni’lin, bombarding streets and houses with teargas for several hours and injuring at least fifteen persons.
Following the invasion on the night of the 13th of August, when eight jeeps entered the village, shot massive amounts of teargas into the homes of sleeping families and arrested one person, protesters gathered inside the village around noon and started walking towards the fields where the wall is being built. They were soon met by Israeli forces who used teargas and physical violence to drive them away. Soldiers used dogs and teargas projectiles to herd the demonstration back towards the village, where several jeeps and many soldiers where already ready to continue fighting.
During the whole afternoon the military stayed in the village, moving down towards the main square of Ni’lin. They used extreme amounts of teargas, shot randomly at houses and people, and were aiming for demonstrators with teargas projectiles and rubber-coated steel bullets. At least fifteen people, three of them internationals, where injured during the day, five of them having been hit in the head by bullets and teargas canisters. The soldiers also detained three Palestinians and one Israeli citizen who was accused of throwing stones. All four were later released. Not until five in the evening did the soldiers pull back and the clouds of teargas evaporate.
The demonstration was part of the continuing resistance of the people of Ni’lin, who are responding to the increased vilence by Israeli forces with increased determination to keep struggling for their rights and against the occupation. If constructed as planned, the apartheid wall will leave Ni’lin with as little as ten percent of their original farmland, and the tunnel that is being planned at the entrance of the village will severely restrict freedom of movement and transportation to and from Ni’lin, effectively reducing the possibility of maintaining anything close to normal life for the five thousand villagers. Hundreds of people have been injured during the past months’ resistance, and two boys, ten and seventeen years old, have been murdered by Israeli forces.
