Palestinians along with international and Israeli peace activists gathered this morning along with cameramen from different press agencies in solidarity with Emad Bornat.
Emad Mohammad Bornat of the village of Bil’in, video photographer for Reuters and documentary film maker, was arrested on Friday October 6th, 2006 by an Israeli Border Police unit that entered the village, firing rubber bullets and sound grenades.
Holding a banner “Soldiers, Stop Your Lies!”, demonstrators marched towards the gate in the apartheid fence built on the land of Bilin where border police and soldiers were standing in a line. A group of Israeli soldiers were noticed hiding in an olive grove on the outskirts of the village.
Cameramen were marching at the front of the crowd to show their solidarity with Emad. Demonstrators chanted slogans in Arabic, English and Hebrew. One Palestinian activist from the village was detained and dragged away by border police and beaten. The Israeli soldiers didn’t listen to protesters demanding his release. A few minutes later, he managed to escape and run away. One Israeli activist was arrested in the process of de-arresting another activist but was later released.
The army followed the demonstration to the village firing sound bombs and tear gas causing damage to some Palestinian properties. A villager and a 14 year-old boy were shot with rubber bullets.
For more information:
Mohammed Khatib: 054 557 3285
As the Lebanese people are reeling from Israel’s illegal bombing campaign, and the people of the West Bank and Gaza are suffering a continuous onslaught by the Israeli military, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and the Boycott Israeli Goods Campaign (BIG) activists joined a nationwide Boycott Day of Action against Israel on 7 October, 2006. A similar day of action was organised on 24 June, 2006, and a further day of action was held by the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
During the day of action, pickets and demonstrations took place at stores selling Israeli products across the UK. Concerned individuals took part in creative actions to persuade the public not to buy Israeli goods and demand that retailers do not stock them. Pickets, street theatre and demonstrations took place in Bradford, Camden, Whitechapel, Hackney, Brighton, East London, Oxford, Slough, Cambridge, Halifax, Exeter, Brent, Cardiff, Reading and Leeds.
The PSC and the BIG campaign are responding to calls from Palestine and calling for a boycott of Israel until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights. On 9 June, 2005, a coalition of Palestinian Civil Society Organisations issued a “call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law’.
Over the summer, the movement for a boycott of apartheid Israel has been gathering momentum. Concerned individuals have taken action to show their anger over Israeli actions in Lebanon and the occupied territories. Many activists have targeted the supply of arms to Israel by invading bases being used to transport weapons components to Israel or taking action against arms companies dealing with Israel. In Derry, during the bombing of Lebanon, activists broke into US arms manufacturer Raytheon’s main office burning thousands of documents, while in Brighton protesters have caused major disruption to EDO MBM, supplier of electrical weapons components to Israel, throughout the summer.
Since the bombing of Lebanon began in June this year, Palestinians have renewed calls for a cultural boycott of apartheid Israel. Several international film festivals, including those at Lussass and Edinburgh have handed back Israeli embassy sponsorship. On 19 September, the Irish group, Academics for Justice, followed in the footsteps of British academic trade unions NAFTHE and the AUT and called for an academic boycott of apartheid Israel.
In addition to its brutal occupation and theft of Palestinian land, the Israeli state also operates an entrenched system of racial discrimination against its own Palestinian civilians, which is, among the reasons, why many South African activists label it an apartheid state.
Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights in 1967 in contravention international law. Since then, Israel has moved over 380,000 settlers into these occupied territories in contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention (article 49), the Hague Regulations and United Nations Security Council Resolutions.
Israel continues to build an illegal apartheid wall inside the West Bank despite the Advisory Ruling of the International Court of Justice in 2005 that the wall is illegal. Fifty five illegal Israeli settlements will be on the Israeli side of the wall separated from the West Bank.
Since 2000, Israel has demolished 628 Palestinian houses, home to 3,983 people, in acts of collective punishment. These demolitions constitute a war crime. 3,808 Palestinians have been killed as a direct result of Israeli military actions and 29,456 injured during the current upraising, which began in September 2000 (above statistics confirmed by the Israeli human rights group Btselem).
The funeral of Abdullah Mansour, murdered by Israeli soldiers. Photo credit: AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh
The Nablus region is constantly under siege by soldiers from the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). In the past three days in Nablus alone, IOF soldiers have killed four Palestinians, injured more than six, and seized at least eight.
Around 2am this morning, IOF soldiers carried out four separate military invasions in the Nablus area. IOF soldiers invaded Al-Ain Refugee Camp, Balata Refuge Camp, Askar Refuge Camp as well as the Old City of Nablus. During the incursion into Al-Ain Camp, an IOF sniper shot and killed Abdullah Mansour 29, of Jericho. Mansour was visiting the home of a relative, and was shot in the head while observing the actions of the IOF from a balcony window. Mansour was not immediately killed by the sniper’s bullet and his life might have been saved if he had been given timely medical care, but as often occurs, his ambulance was prevented from reaching the area by IOF soldiers attempting to impose a closure on the area during their operations.
Some Israeli media sources reported that Mansour was a resistance fighter, shot while attempting to plant a bomb, but this account is contradicted by eyewitness reports from neighbors, a nearby photojournalist, as well as medical personnel. Monsour was a civilian, not a fighter, and he was shot from within a relative’s home, not on the street planting a bomb.
On the same night Mansour was murdered, IOF solders invaded the Nablus Al-Qaryoun neighborhood in the Old City, as well as Balata and Askar refugee camps. In the course of the four incursions, five Palestinian males were taken prisoner by IOF soldiers. In Nablus’ Old City, IOF soldiers broke into numerous homes and seized two brothers, Fadi Ziad Galiz 18, and Mohammad Ziad Galiz, 25. During the attack, which lasted from 2am until 4am, IOF soldiers occupied the Afuri building just outside of the Al-Qaryoun square and used the building as on observation position.
The same night, IOF soldiers invaded Balata Refuge Camp and Askar Refuge Camp. In Balata, IOF soldiers seized three men, Azmi Tawfiq Al Serafi, 20, Abu Rish, 20 and another 20 year old man known only as Hussam. The invasion into Askar Refugee camp utilized an armored, American-made Caterpillar D9 bulldozer in addition to the standard armored army jeeps. The Caterpillar trudged through the camp’s narrow streets and alleys destroying water pumps and pipes, as well as causing extensive damage to camp’s the central market.
In total, during the three hours of invasions into four areas, five men were seized and one killed.
This most recent upsurge of violence began early Sunday morning when IOF soldiers shot and killed a man in Balata Refugee camp. In approximately seventy-two hours, IOF soldiers would kill four Palestinian men, injure more than six and arrest many others. On Sunday morning, in a pre-dawn incursion to Balata Camp, IOF soldiers shot and killed Osama Saleh, 22, known locally as Skipper. Skipper was a resistance fighter with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (who are linked to the Abu Mazan’s Fatah movement), and was shot twice in the chest as he attempted to prevent IOF soldiers from entering the camp by engaging them in an armed clash. During these clashes, IOF soldiers killed Skipper and injured at least four additional persons.
Approximately twelve hours after the invasion into Balata, IOF soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian civilian at Huwarra checkpoint, the main barrier for Nablus residents seeking to travel south, and for those traveling from the south into Nablus. At 3:20pm on Sunday, Amjad Mohammed El-Haj Tirawi, 23, also from Balata Refugee Camp, was attempting to travel south despite the IOF’s total closure of Huwarra checkpoint because of the Jewish holiday. With the checkpoint closed, and Tirawi left with no other way to reach his home, he traveled in a car on a bypass road. IOF soldiers in an army jeep who happened to be stationed on the bypass road at that time spotted Tirawi’s car when it reached the Al-Sateh area, one kilometer from the village of Til. Rather then arresting the passengers of the car, the soldiers opened fire. Tirawi was shot several times in the head, chest and legs and killed. During the shooting, Ahmed Hazzaa Ramadan, 21, from Til village was also shot in the shoulder and injured. The media response by the IOF to this murder was to deny it had even happened, saying they were “unaware of any shooting incident in the area”. That night IOF soldiers arrested another three men from Nablus.
Twenty four hours after the killing of Tirawi, IOF soldiers at Huwarra checkpoint murdered yet another Palestinian man. According to reports from local media, medical volunteers and eyewitnesses, Mohammed Waleed Mustafa Sa’ada, 20, also from Til village was shot and killed without provocation. Sa’ada had approached the checkpoint, heading towards a taxi that was being searched by IOF soldiers. When he was approximately ten meters from the taxi, without warning, Sa’ada was shot once and wounded, forcing him to fall to the ground. While kneeling on the ground, a second IOF soldier opened fired on Sa’ada, hitting him three times. Palestinian bystanders were prevented from aiding Sa’ada after he was shot. An ambulance with the Palestinian Red Crescent arrived soon after, and once again, bystanders were prevented from aiding the medics in their attempts to transport the wounded man to the ambulance stretcher. Sa’ada later died from his wounds.
Official IOF accounts of the incident diverge strongly from the numerous eyewitness testimonies. An IOF spokesperson said that Sa’ada was shot while “attempting to assault a solider with a knife” though no knife was recovered, and all accounts indicate that Sa’ada was nearly ten meters from the closest soldier when he was shot four times.
The following day, Huwarra checkpoint was closed to all Palestinian males under 45 years old. Soldiers at the checkpoint also beat an unnamed youth from the village of Almasharik. After the assault, the young man was taken into detention.
The last three days in Nablus have shown a dangerous upsurge in the use of deadly force by IOF soldiers. With two shot dead at a checkpoint and at least eight shot in the refugee camps, the Nablus region is under siege. There are daily incursions into the Nablus refugee camps and city center, and on an average day, soldiers invade and occupy homes, fire at buildings and arrest unarmed citizens. The recent killings have alarmed the local residents, though the regularity of violence in the area is not new. Residents of Nablus, like Azzem Hroub, 42, call on the international community to speak out against the use of violence against civilians and the frequent closures of the city. Hroub, a local shop keeper in Nablus’ Old City commented on the events of the last three days and said, “They just keep killing as every day. They could use arrests but they just kill and kill. When they close checkpoints for their [Jewish] special days, what are we to do? We must try to move around, and if we do this, we are killed. What are we to do? What can the US or the UN do for us in this time? Our situation is very difficult.”
In total during this the time discussed, occupation forces have arrested at least forty-two Palestinian males in military raids throughout the West Bank.
At approximately 2pm two Human Rights Workers (HRWs) at the top of Tel Rumeida Street noticed that a small group of Palestinian boys were talking to the soldiers stationed at the guard post there. Shortly afterwards, a Palestinian HRW arrived and asked the boys what the matter was, and one boy, aged approximately 9, said that the soldier at checkpoint 56 (which controls the main entrance between the H2 area, which is controlled by the Israeli army, and the H1 area which is -at least theoretically- controlled by the Palestinian Authority) had shortly before demanded money from him as he passed through the checkpoint, taken one Shekel from him and then slapped him on the back of the neck. As the soldiers at the checkpoint change shifts at 2pm, the boys and the Palestinian HRW waited for the solider in question to come up Tel Rumeida hill to return to the IOF (Israeli Occupation Force) base. When questioned, the solider claimed that he had joked with the boy about taking money from him, but that it had been only a joke and that he had not hit the child. Two of the HRWs offered to give the boy a Shekel but the boy insisted he only wanted his money back from the soldier. The soldier refused to give the boy one Shekel and left the scene.
Wednesday, 11 October 2006
An “average” day in Tel Rumeida right now. The Jewish holiday of Succot is still running, and that meant quite a few tourist buses and a lot of Jewish tourists walking between the Tel Rumeida and Beit Hadassah settlements. It seems as if the tourists are routinely given misleading information as to why the HRWs are on the streets as the tourists have often tried to either interrogate the HRWs or else they gather round and insult them. Today a small group called two HRWs “Nazis” and “anti-Semites” and another group asked if the HRWs were checking to see whether they were behaving themselves and claimed that the HRWs “harbour terrorists”.
At 4.35pm a Christian Peacemakers Teams (CPT) patrol consisting of an elderly man and woman was attacked by settler children while walking in front of the Beit Hadassah settlement. Four children kicked and punched them and one child threw stones at them, while telling them to “go home”. The adults nearby did nothing to stop or discourage the attack. CPT also reported that the IOF were doing ID checks on Palestinian men at the checkpoint near the Ibrahim Mosque and that, as the ID checks were taking up to an hour each, there were a lot of men being detained there.
The close relationship between the settlers and the soldiers was also illustrated once again as two IOF soldiers stopped a settler car on Shuhada Street and was given a lift up the street to the Tel Rumeida settlement. The settler driving the car gave an obscene finger gesture to a HRW as he drove past with the soldiers in his car.
UPDATE, Thursday 12th, 6.30pm: The military judge at Ofer refused to release Emad into house arrest at the home of someone in Bil’in, insisting that an alternative be found outside the village. For now, Emad remains in an Israeli prison. The next hearing is on the 15th.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
At midday, Friday the 13th of October, the villagers of Bil’in will march in solidarity with Emad Bornat, the Reuters cameraman and video-journalist, also a resident of Bil’in. The demonstrators will hold up cameras as a sign of solidarity with Emad and protest against the Israeli army’s crackdown on freedom of press.
Today, October 11th, at the appeal hearing, the Israeli military decided to launch an indictment against Emad. The judge will make a ruling tomorrow at 4pm, but that might not be the end of his captivity. After an initial hearing at Ofer military court on the 10th, military judge Shlomo Katz, ordered Emad to be released, but the Israeli military appealed this decision and said he should be held for a further 72 hours. The judge gave the army 24 hours to contest the judgement or indict him.
Emad Mohammad Bornat of the village of Bil’in, video photographer for Reuters and documentary film maker, was arrested on Friday October 6th, 2006 by a Israeli Border Police unit that entered the village, firing rubber bullets and sound grenades. Emad is being held in Israeli military custody and will be brought in front of a judge at Ofer military base tomorrow Tuesday the 10th of October.
Emad, who was filming at the time, was arrested by an Israeli Border policeman. When Emad arrived at the police station in Givat Zeev, he was wounded. The Border Police soldiers claimed a radio “fell” on him in the jeep, on the way to the station. He was taken to the Hadassah – Har Hatzofim hospital and was then taken back to the police station in Givat Zeev. After he was interrogated, the police refused to view the tapes that Emad filmed. Emad is accused of “assault on an officer” and of stone throwing and was sent to the Etzion prison. Israeli Border Police have in the past been rebuked by military judges on false testimonies towards arrested Palestinian demonstrators and their Israeli supporters.
Emad has tirelessly documented the struggle of his village against the wall and settlements, and is known by many other professionals with whom he works and cooperates, giving them video material for their films and reports. He is a man of peace and a dedicated and responsible video-photo-journalist. His video footage has been broadcast throughout the world, showing the demonstrations against the wall Israel is constructing on his village’s land. It shows the routine, and often brutal, violence of the Israeli military in general and the Border Police in particular on the demonstrations, especially as used against Palestinians.
