Author: ISM Media Group - Page 324 - International Solidarity Movement

Taking the piss out of war games in Hebron

by: Yifat Appelbaum

Israeli soldiers in Hebron sometimes do exercises to practice for combat situations. Ok, I can accept that. They need to always be on their toes in case there is a terrorist, right? *wink wink nudge nudge* But when they do it around Palestinian homes it is just a form of harassment, the purpose of which is to scare and intimidate the residents. Remind them who’s boss, so to speak.

Last night we were walking down the street at about 9pm and we saw about 10 Israeli soldiers playing their war games in the street. They were prancing around, running, ducking, hiding and pointing their guns at all of us. But you have to put your foot down when they enter onto Palestinian property and start doing this thing in people’s front yards.

When they entered a yard, we followed, wondering if they were going try to force their way into the house. I asked the commander how he would feel if 10 armed Palestinians started raising hell at the front of the door to his home. He told me he could not talk to me. So I let him sniff a rose my friend Issa had given me. Because everyone needs to stop to sniff the flowers, even if you are a commander performing a military exercise, right?

At this point, one of our activists, lets call him “Snufkin” decided to take the piss out of the war games and began dashing about, performing somersaults on the ground in front of the soldiers, hiding, pointing an invisible gun all over the place and yelling “where are the terrorists.” He climbed up on walls, got on a roof, where he was joined by another “soldier.” They waved their guns around and then Snufkin jumped off the roof, ran down the street and dropped down with his stomach to the ground in front of an Israeli police jeep which had just pulled up.

This performance continued for a few minutes and the soldiers left the Palestinian yard and went out onto the street where they sat huddled in a corner watching the parody of their military exercise.

The cop questioned Snufkin for a few minutes and then let him go. I guess there’s no law against taking the piss around here, thankfully.

I wish I had photos or video of this but unfortunately I don’t.

Israeli settler attacks Palestinian girl, Police detain four human rights workers

Israeli settler attacks Palestinian girl
by ISM Hebron, 28 April 2007

On Tuesday, April 24, just after 11 am, two human rights workers (HRWs), an Israeli and an international, saw a settler boy from the Tel Rumeida Settlement beat a Palestinian girl as she was making her way home from school. The six border police standing close by did nothing to intervene. The HRWs were standing at a military post a block away from the military post that sits at the edge of the settlement area. The attack occurred just beyond the second military post, inside the settlement area. The settler boy was sitting on a curb watching the Palestinian girl as she was walking toward him. He then sprung up, rushed toward her, and began hitting and kicking her. The Israeli HRW, legally able to enter the settlement area, ran toward the settlement, however he was stopped by the border police and threatened with arrest. In this time the settler boy’s mother pulled him away from the Palestinian girl. Another Israeli HRW ran up toward the border police shortly after the first. He was also stopped and threatened with arrest.

Israeli police detain four human rights workers
by ISM Hebron, 28 April 2007

On Wednesday April 25, the soldiers entered a residence housing a number of international HRW’s in Tel Rumeida. They attempted to make a search for both persons and evidence of involvement in a recent incidence of graffiti in the locality. Initially, there were two HRWs on the roof. Another HRW came out soon after following the commotion. Having established they had no papers to qualify their search and refusals by the army to outline the reason for their presence, they were repeatedly asked to leave. It was only after several minutes the HRWs were able to get the military out of the building. Even after the military were leaving a soldier was intent on causing continued harrassment by preventing the HRW from closing the door by putting both his foot and gun in the way. The HRW emphasized that if the military felt there was a problem then they should call the police and have it dealt with correctly.

On Thursday, April 26, three HRWs were detained by the Qiryat Arba Police. At 9:00am, a female HRW had began duty at the Tel Rumeida checkpoint to keep watch over the locality. During the following half hour, she noticed a local settler from the Beit Haddassa settlement drive past and stare at her on a number of occassions. This was initially dismissed as passive aggression by the settler. However, at 9:30am, the police arrived at the checkpoint and requested the attention of the female HRW. Two army personnel were present at the checkpoint and a further two police officers were present as well as the HRW. The police first questioned the HRW about an incident of graffiti that had taken place in the locality and the HRW denied any knowledge or involvement of the incident. Her passport was requested and given immediately and obvious attempts were shown that she was willing to co-operate into their investigation and their concerns.

To the police inquiries, she explained her whereabouts, who she had been with and the exact times that she had been in the street. She was ordered to go to the police station for further questioning. Despite repeated statements that she had not been involved in any way and a desire for the CCTV camera videos to be checked to demonstrate her lack of involvement, the police stated that as the settler had specifically pointed her out as being involved, they must take her in for questioning. (The CCTV cameras are militarily run and record the whole of Tel Rumeida, day and night). Further to this, the HRW in cooperating gave the name of the only person she had been speaking with in the street the previous evening, another male HRW. The police demanded that this other person attend the police station for questioning. Both HRWs felt confident that their innocence would be proven and cooperated fully.

The female HRW went into the police van to be taken to the station. While doing this, she further alerted fellow HRWs of the incident to request support and guidance. Arriving at the police station, she spent some 15 minutes waiting in the back of the police van before being taken into the police station. She was also asked to call her fellow male HRW to cooperate and come to the police station. She fulfilled this request by asking her fellow HRW to attend the police station and it was agreed he would attend on the condition that it was the police only and not the army that he would attend with. The female HRW was left to wait for around 30 minutes, during this time she was introduced to the Commanding officer, Yusef. After this wait she saw her male HRW arrive at the station and he was requested to sit some 15 meters away and that they were not to talk to each other. The male HRW had his passport number taken. However, when the settler saw the male HRW, the settler indicated the HRW was not the one involved in the grafitti. The HRW was released and driven back to Tel Rumeida.

After waiting another 30 minutes, the female HRW was taken into a set of offices and asked to wait for another officer, Adiel Shalom. Only after waiting for some time did Adiel request for the HRW to attend his office where he advised that he wanted to ask her a number of questions relating to the graffiti incident. He seemed determined that she had undertaken this act despite her refusals. It was only when the HRW inquired whether she had been arrested that the officer confirmed that she had been arrested under suspicion of writing “Free Palestine” on a number of walls in the Tel Rumeida settlement. The femal HRW once again described where she had been the previous evening and who she had been with and re-asserted several times that she had not been involved and that she was being falsely accused. The police officer claimed that she was a liar and that he “knew what people like her were like.” The officer was aggressive in his questions and demanded that she told the truth, stating that she was a liar and that she had been involved and told her repeatedly that she had done the graffiti.

To his allegations, the HRW continued to protest her innocence. The officer made threats relating to her being pulled in front of the judge to be deported for this incident. The officer had been making notes from the interrogation which he requested the HRW to sign. Because the document was in Hebrew, she was unable to read it and therefore did not sign it. The officer considered this a sign of guilt and he continued to harrass her with claims she was a liar and raising his voice to her.

The female HRW then spoke with the British embassy who offered her support and further a legal adviser who spoke with the officer and was able to advise that the police were moving towards a release solution. This consisted of military orders prohibiting the female HRW from entering the Tel Rumeida area for a period of 14 days. The HRW declined this offer and despite repeated threats of being deported and being taken to jail the officer finally agreed to release her “without conditions.” The HRW was required to sign a document for her release which held English translations and was left to go free after a total period of 4 hours.

Shortly after the male HRW was taken by the police, a second female HRW was asked for her passport. After a few minutes of questioning she was asked to get into the police jeep to come to the police station for further questioning and to have her visa information checked. After an hour of waiting, an officer returned her passport and warned her if she was caught once again in Tel Rumeida she would be arrested.

On Friday, April 27, 2007, a fourth HRW was at the top of Tel Rumeida street, just a block from the Tel Rumeida settlement. The same settler of the previous day implicated who implicated the HRWs stopped his vehicle and spoke to the army. Soldiers then detained the HRW. Present were two army patrol officers, three HRWs, two journalists and a handful of Palestinian children. The HRW was brought to Qiryat Arba police station and detained for four and a half hours, then released. The police questioned the HRW for a half hour on the grafitti incident and appeared to accept that he was not involved. The remainder of the questioning dealt with visa issues. The settler who implicated the HRW was also present at the police station and interviewed by the police for approximately a half hour.

For more info, contact:
ISM Media Office, 02-207-1824, 0599-943-157

PNN: Gathering Steam in South Bethlehem

Nonviolent Activism Gathers Steam in Southern Bethlehem
by Sami Awad, April 27th, 2007

To see video, click HERE

The southern villages of Bethlehem have been organizing weekly nonviolent resistance activities to the building of the Apartheid Wall that will ultimately separate the farmers from these villages from 70% of their agricultural land.

The activity this week witnessed an evolution of size and strategy. For the first time, over 200 participants (Palestinians, Israelis, and International) joined in the direct action; for the first time, the committee responsible for organizing the action included new members from villages in the South of Bethlehem and activists from the northern villages of Hebron (Beit Umar), and for the first time their was a clear increase in the number of International and Israeli activist.

On the strategic level, the success of the previous actions empowered the organizers to target a location that was perceived as impossible to reach, the Bethlehem-Hebron Road (also know as Road 60). Once the wall is completed in this area, Palestinians will not be able to travel on this historic route which will only be used for the cars of Jewish settlers. Palestinians will only be allowed to use back and side roads increasing the duration of any trip by over 200% at minimum (i.e. to go from Bethlehem to Hebron will take 1 hour instead of the usual 15 minutes).

The goal of this nonviolent action was to go and protest on this road and to express our opposition not only to the building of the wall but also to the continued existence and expansion of settlements that are the cause for building the wall, (the wall guarantees the land for future settlement building and expansion).

As soon as we began the procession, tens of armed Israeli troops came and attempted to stop the protest from moving to the land. The demonstrators broke into the army wall that was created and we continued our procession to the land near the main road where the Israeli soldiers used violence again to try to suppress the action (several were injured including journalists). Several people gave talks denouncing the building of the wall and called for a real and justice peace between Palestinians and Israelis. Friday prayer was then conducted on the land. On the return back to the location where we began the action, the Israeli soldiers again pushed and yelled. It was truly wonderful to see the commitment to nonviolence by the more than 200 participants.

The level of frustration by the Israeli army to the success of the nonviolent activity was not witnessed on the site, but the retaliation took place on our way to our homes. Israeli army check points were placed on the entry ways to all locations where the participants came from and cars that were at the sight of the action were stopped, the people were insulted, some were forcefully removed from the cars and then cars and individuals were searched for almost an hour. Of course the Israeli army knew there was nothing to search for, but that seemed to be the only response they can think of to “punish” the participants for being successful in this action.

My hope is that nonviolent action does not only give us an opportunity to show the world our rejection of injustice, but to also give us an opportunity to open the eyes of those who are doing the injustice to truly think about what they are doing. Yes, at first it may be frustrating to them as we challenge their believe system and ideologies, but then their humanity will overcome their prejudice.

Residents of Al Hadidiya to Resist Home Demolitions

Residents in Al Hadidiya prepare to Resist the Demolition of their Homes
from Brighton Palestine, 27 April 2007

The residents of Al Hadidya have been awaiting army action since April 21st when a court ruling came into effect ordering them to leave and for the demolition of their homes. Al Hadidya is a collection of Bedouin Camps in an isolated area of countryside, deemed a military area by Israeli occupying forces, close to the illegal Israeli colony of Ro’i. International activists have maintained a constant presence in the area since Saturday and are planning to resist the demolitions.

When internationals arrived in Al Hadidya many of the villagers were in the process of moving their tents to an area three kilometres away. The new camp is situated next to a fenced off settler water pumping station but Palestinians are forced to travel to Ein al Shibli by tractor to fetch water. The new camp is a further 3km away across rough terrain from this water supply, meaning an addional hours journey by tractor a day for some families.

Those families who have been forced to move are afraid that the army will issue them with another demolition order. Residents say that there is now nowhere else to go and that they will be forced out of the area if this happens.

Several families have chosen to stay in the ir homes despite the danger of demolition. One local farmer has said that he will not move and that even if they demolish his home he will rebuild again on the same spot.

Most farmers in the area have had their homes demolished two or three times since in the last five years.

One resident, describing the previous time the Israeli military had come to demolish his house said ‘they came with ten vehicles, fifty soldiers and bulldozers to demolish my tent. During the demolition several of my sheep were run over by military vehicles, when my wife tried to protect them she was assaulted’

Despite the threat of violence villagers will not give up their land, where many have lived since before 1967, and will stay to resist the demolitions and to rebuild again.

The Israeli policy of house demolitions in the Jordan Valley is intended to ethnically cleanse the region by marginalising Palestinian access to land and pushing Palestinians out of areas where they can retain Jordan Valley IDs. The number of Jordan Valley permits, only given to permanent residents of the area, has significantly decreased since the Intifada while settler domination of the area has increased. 97% of the valley is either militarised, closed to civilians, or controlled by the settlements.

Amnesty Int’l: Al Hadidiya – Urgent Action Alert Launched

House Demolition/forced eviction
from Amnesty International, 27 April 2007

East Med Team
PUBLIC AI Index: MDE 15/029/2007

On 10 April, the Israeli army served demolition orders on all the residents of the Palestinian Bedouin village of Hadidiya, in the Jordan Valley in the east of the occupied West Bank, giving them until 21 April to leave their homes. The inhabitants of the village about 100 men, women and children from several families expect the tents and shacks where they live to be demolished any time. After previous demolitions they have pitched tents again in the village but now they face being forcibly removed from the land where they have lived for decades. Since receiving the orders, some families have left the village to take refuge in other villages, while other families have decided to remain in their homes until they are forcibly evicted.

The Bedouin as a group mostly live in tents off the produce of their herds of sheep and goats. The Palestinian Bedouin residents of Hadidiya have lived in the area since before the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel occupied the West Bank.

The village of Hadidiya was previously demolished in 1997, after its inhabitants had received orders for the demolition of their tents. The residents pitched tents and rebuilt shacks and appealed against the demolitions to the Civil Administration (the Israeli military administration of the West Bank) but lost their case. Five families
living in the village decided to appeal further to the Israeli High Court of Justice. On 10 December 2006 the High Court of Justice finally turned down this appeal. Palestinian appeals to the courts against home demolitions are almost invariably rejected.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

For years Israel has pursued a policy of discriminatory house demolition, allowing scores of Israeli settlements, illegal under international law, to be built on occupied Palestinian land, while confiscating Palestinian lands, refusing building permits for Palestinians and destroying their homes. In particular, there has been relentless pressure from the Israeli army in the West Bank on Palestinians from Bedouin groups to leave the areas where they have been accustomed to live and graze their flocks for decades. The reasons given by the Israeli courts e.g. lack of planning permission, land reserved for agricultural use or land in a military zone are used against Palestinians, while Israeli settlements continue to expand on Palestinian agricultural land. The land vacated has often been used for illegal settlements, such as the vast settlement of Maale Adumim near Jerusalem, which was built on land which was once used by Palestinian Bedouin.

Palestinians, including Palestinian Bedouin, in the Jordan Valley, much of which is now a military area or taken over by some 36 Israeli settlements, have suffered particular pressure. Since May 2005 Palestinians whose identity documents do not give the northern Jordan Valley as their place of residence are not allowed to live in the Jordan Valley. House demolition has been widely used as a means to force the Palestinian population to leave the Jordan Valley; then, living elsewhere, the army will not allow such Palestinians to return . Families often receive house demolition orders written in Hebrew, a language which most Palestinians do not understand or read; sometimes these orders are not given to the families but simply left on the land.

Families often only know of the order when the army arrives to demolish their homes.

RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in English, Hebrew or your own language:
– expressing concern that the residents of Hadidiya are facing the demolition of
their homes and calling for the demolition orders to be rescinded;
– calling on the Israeli authorities to stop immediately the destruction of Palestinian houses and other properties in the Occupied Palestinian Territories without absolute military necessity as prescribed by international humanitarian law.

APPEALS TO:
Tzipi Livni
Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
9 Yitzhak Rabin Boulevard
Kiryat Ben-Gurion
Jerusalem 91035
Israel
Fax: +972 2 530 3367
Email: sar@mfa.gov.il
Salutation: Dear Minister

Brigadier General Avihai Mandelblit
Military Judge Advocate General
David Elazar Street
Tel Aviv, Israel
Fax: +972 3 608 0366
Email: arbel@mail.idf.il
Salutation: Dear Judge Advocate General

Commander
District Coordination Office (DCO)
Jericho
Fax: +972 2 9943305
Salutation: Dear Sir
COPIES TO: diplomatic representatives of Israel accredited to your country.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Check with the International Secretariat, or your
section office, if sending appeals after 8 June 2007.

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