On the nights of the 22nd and 23rd of January Ni’lin was invaded by the Israeli army. Dozens of jeeps, more than a hundred soldiers and a helicopter were present in the village invasion. A total of five homes were entered by the soldiers. Family members were beaten, humiliated and arrested when the army could not find who they were looking for. Two of the arrested were women. Collective punishment as witnessed in Ni’lin is forbidden under international law.
On the night of the 22nd of January at around midnight more than 70 soldiers surrounded one house and forcefully entered a house where three families are living, 11 persons in total. They were searching for one of the male family members. The soldiers acted very aggressively, scaring all the people by their brutality. They destroyed a lot of furniture, opened drawers scattering clothes and belongings. The 8 month year old son of the wanted man was taken abruptly from his bed as the soldiers forced everyone to go outside in the cold night in their pajamas, denying them the time to put on more clothes.
The young wife of the wanted man (20 years old and three months pregnant) was beaten with a stool and then dragged outside by her hair. As she was handcuffed the commander then humiliated her in front of her family and the other soldiers.
The father of the wanted man who is 55 years old, was beaten and cuffed by both his hands and feet. The soldiers stayed for about three hours before they left after kidnapping both the young wife and the father. They also stole two computers, two telephones, one car and jewelry.
Both of them were brought to Betunia prison and held captive for three days. In the last two years the soldiers have invaded their house around twenty times.
The following night on the 23rd of January, the soldiers returned to search for the wanted man again. They found him, cuffed him by his hands and feet and blindfolded him. They arrested him and took him to Ofer Prison Camp.
The same night the soldiers invaded a nearby house looking for another wanted man. The home was of a 17 year old that the soldiers believed to be his fiancé. They handcuffed, then kidnapped her and then the following morning, let her return to her family after she had been humiliated and interrogated in prison.
Three people of the seven who were arrested are still in prison.
weekly demonstration protesting the Israeli occupation and the atrocities in Gaza. The crowd numbered around 2500 people, somewhat smaller than the two previous weeks when the Israeli attack on Gaza was in progress.
Israeli forces fired large amounts of tear gas and rubber coated bullets and some live ammunition. Some of the tear gas canisters were of the type that have been used in recent weeks at Ni’lin village and other locations. These canisters are much heavier and of a much higher velocity than the normal canisters, posing a risk of serious injury or death to anyone hit directly by a canister.
become no-go zones during the attacks, such as Jabalia just outside Gaza City. On Tuesday 20th January, ISM Gaza Strip volunteers joined a university professor as he visited his house in the east of Jabalia. We were shown from room to room around the bombed-out shell of what had once been a beautiful home. When asked if he and his family would continue to live there, he replied calmly that it was their right to and that they would never leave their land.
We met a blind woman who had been held prisoner for 11 days in one room of her home, along with a paralysed man, whilst Israeli soldiers used it as a base. Terrified and expecting to be killed at any time, they were given water twice during their ordeal. When the Red Crescent evacuated them, the woman said she could finally breathe for the first time since the soldiers arrived. The walls had been daubed with Hebrew graffiti, empty plastic food trays were strewn around and the stairway stank of urine.